Jezebel: Final Edit
by donacielita
Summary: Moved from ibizababy's account. An ancient grudge has been the burden on her back for more than two centuries—now she must settle the score before it demolishes what's left. Released from her mystical prison, Seraphi witch Jezebel Zaragoza plans to confront the sinister leader of an ancient Mayan cult of witches that has pursued her for centuries.
1. Persona Non Grata

**TRISTAN**

Marcellus' suspicion rings through the cell phone that afternoon. "So this is your version of asking me something nicely? It's an invitation."  
He's right on top of it.  
"I believe Aya told you a bit about The Strix, Marcellus... Who we are, what we're capable of. Every few years, we gather to celebrate our status as the most elite creatures in the world, and in the rare instance we feel we've identified someone worthy of our attention, we choose to reach out," I explain to him.  
"You think I'm interested?" he laughs at me.  
My grin widens as I look out the window of the car. "You haven't hung up. I understand you fostered quite a community here in New Orleans. We can offer you something more global... Resources, access, power. You're a born leader, Marcel. Why stop at just one city?"  
"Maybe I'm happy with what I've got," Marcel wants to convince himself.  
"I doubt that, but if I've failed to coax you, just disregard this call. Though if you feel you'd be worthy of joining our ranks, don't be late to the party tonight." I hang up.  
I feel triumphant having wavered Marcel's path in this sire line war. As the son of that most dreadful family, his allegiance will welcome the time for the Mikaelsons to learn not everyone loves them as much as they believe. My head is pounding. I need blood.  
The chauffeur helps me from my car while a few awaiting members of my Strix take the bags from my car. Delaney manhandles the briefcase I've marked fragile. I rip it from his hand, holding it accordingly whilst I gaze at him tediously.  
"Can you read?" I snap before walking inside.  
As I gaze around the villa that will harbor my visitation, Aya approaches me with a thin smile on her face.  
"Have you got it?" She wonders.  
I hold the briefcase at eye level, and Mohinder carefully opens the large padlocks. I gesture one of our trusted witches over to remove the imprisonment spell I ordered to be put on this hazardous weapon. Aya gently opens the top of the luggage, frowning at the contents before me.  
"Lovely, isn't it?" I purr.  
I grab her wrist before she can touch the fine antique inside.  
"A sundial? You said you were bringing a weapon of war," doubtfully, she reminds me.  
"Willingly or forcefully. You're looking upon her," I smirk.  
The sundial has been engraved, scratched, rusted teal, but its function remains stable.  
"This sundial is as old as the first Mayan civilization. It holds the earliest criterion of a witch known to man. Godly, demonizing... She is what we need to to keep the Strix on top; she must be kept under our watchful eye at all times," I announce.  
Several vampires maneuver around us, preparing for my stay.  
"You have the power to say such things when you know someone as such," Aya hints.  
I nod softly. The memory is unpleasant and a horrific picture, but I haven't the time to draw regret from it.  
"Well, once we've had the pleasure, we'll be able to gauge how accurate her value is," I murmur.  
I shut the briefcase forcefully, handing it over to Mohinder.  
"Guard it with your life. And should you have any inducing hallucinations or cravings—don't worry. She does that." With that, I apply a harsh pat on his upper back to reassure him of where I put my trust, and I take my leave.  
I'll be needing a suit.

**MARCEL**

I don't think the invitation has left my hand all day. I'm still staring down at it. It depicts a regal and wise night owl, but really, it's just a condescending way to put ornamentation on the Strix's name. Am I going? I'm against it, but if Elijah's gonna keep looking down on me like he does, I will accept just to find out what my options are.  
Somewhere in my mind, I almost think things could be alright tonight. The suit I was gifted fit fine in an almost creepy way. Klaus has been preoccupied with an old friend at the Compound and Elijah will be showing up tonight at the ball. He'll just love seeing me here.  
When I arrive at midnight on the dot, I find myself being watched by five extensive units of security at the front gates of the rented villa. Aya comes to my rescue and lets me inside.  
"Forgive the high precaution. We're a private people," Aya notifies me.  
That is quite the lackluster excuse to have fifteen tuxes loitering outside a double door entrance. Privacy could be mistaken for a disturbed hybrid who was uninvited. Aya gestures to a burly guy beside her.  
She introduces us, "Marcel, I'd like you to meet my mentor Mohinder. He taught me everything I know about combat."  
"Oh, if that's the case, then I am impressed," I say.  
After all, she took me down with a tiny scratch on the neck. It's one of my new favorite party tricks.  
She keeps talking, "As part of his discipline, he drinks only the blood of vampires he's vanquished in combat. He can go weeks without feeding, yet suffer no effects of hunger, such is his control over body and mind."  
I really can only nod to that, looking around and ready to make the small talk compliment of the party's complexity. My eyes land on Elijah, who is watching me from across the room. A clinking noise interrupts our staring contest. Tristan wants to say something, taking a glamorous step into the center of the venue.  
"Distinguished friends, welcome. It's so rare that we're able to come together like this to revel for one night in the company of true equals. Now I'd like to take a moment to welcome a very special guest, Mr. Marcel Gerard," Tristan declares.  
His hand slowly straightens out to guide their gazes to me. There's clapping and my gratitude is silent.  
He waits for it to stop before he says anything more. "Of course, before we tell Marcel all of our secrets, there's one small piece of business to which we must first attend. We must determine his worth."  
I draw my head back hearing this. Determine my worth? What in the hell does that mean?  
"That's funny. I seem to recall you being the one knocking on my door," I claim.  
"You'll notice, Mr. Gerard, that over the course of the evening someone has managed to take something quite dear to you... Your daylight ring," Tristan smiles back at me.  
I look down and he's right. The ring is no longer on my right middle finger.  
He talks down to me likes I don't already understand what is about to happen. "You need to deduce the identity of the thief. Then you are simply to take back what is yours... Although, I doubt the prize will be easily relinquished. After all, despite our refinement, we're still a rather violent bunch. In victory, you become one of us. In failure, you meet your death. You have a few hours until dawn. I wish you the best of luck."  
I needed something strong to impair my stress. I should have expected this. There is no such thing as a vampire, or a group of them for that matter, that doesn't play games. It wasn't a test of my worth–it was a test of my honesty. I know they're suspicious of me.  
"I could have warned you," someone says from beside me at the bar.  
It's Elijah, drinking his favorite scotch and expecting me to speak my apologies.  
I lick my lips, calmly answering him, "Look. I didn't tell you I was coming tonight because..."  
He finishes for me. "I wouldn't have allowed it."  
He makes it so hard to feel like a mutual adult sometimes.  
"There's that word... 'Allowed.' You know, I thought I'd earned the right to be considered an equal, but that's not the way it works in your family, so it's time I consider my options. If nothing else, The Strix aren't interested in me as a sidekick," I point out to him.  
"These options, as you describe them, are a death sentence. I suppose I shall have to intervene. It is a shame. I expect it shall ruin my tuxedo. I have had this suit for over a hundred years. It's proven far more reliable than you, Marcellus," he replies.  
I shake my head. "Relax, all right? I got this under control."  
"Do you?" he imitates a parental tone.  
I don't have to answer that.  
The Villa of the party has a nice garden. It's only two in the morning. The sky is still holding onto the last crumbs of sunlight. It reminds me of the pictures in a book I stole from my master when I was young. The Alphabet of Ben Sira. I was learning how to read, and if it weren't for that picture of the Garden of Eden, I'd have lost interest.  
I hear the quiet pat of footsteps behind me next.  
I almost jump when I turn around. I'm facing a beautiful young woman with a tan face and cat-like green eyes, bathed in the dewy cobalt skylight.  
"Tristan send you out here to give me a clue?" I estimate.  
She holds something out in her small palm; her hands are covered in strange indigenous markings and her nails look so sharp they might be talons. She has my sunlight ring.  
I reach for it, but it transforms into a small black insects that crawls around her wrist and all the way up her arm.  
"Who are you?" I urge.  
She vanishes when I come to glance upward her face. Chuffing, like a choking child or a frustrated beast tickles my eardrums; when I look to my right, a round pair of glowing green eyes peers half its face out at me from the arch doorway of the villa. The big animal snarls boredly and makes a scratching noise on the vinyl tile flooring as it stalks away. I might have had one or two absinthes too many, but I am almost completely sure it wants me to follow. I try to meet the spiritual entity in the hallway before it gets too far, but what I see instead is much more unexpected. The villa has become empty, and ironically enough, the only sound prominent enough to follow now is the glower of a thousand crickets and cooing birds. I can't hear a single New Orleans trumpet in the distance over the white noise of a jungle.  
"Elijah?" Mistrustful, I call out.  
I place my naked hand on the wall beside me to help me maneuver through the dark space in the hallway. My loafers meet a big puddle. I think someone may have spilled their wine at first, but the farther I walk, the deeper this puddle gets. It smells of old tree sap. I'm walking through a flooded house; magic is definitely at work here. I step back quickly when something long and fast swims past my shins. It hisses at my quick actions. Intimidated, I glance down the hallway. The woman from before is walking up the staircase.  
"That's enough!" I shout to her. "You can tell Tristan he's taking it too far!"  
If Tristan even is responsible for this. I trudge through the dark water with hazard. The closer I get to the dry grand stairway, the louder the same chuffing sound becomes. I rip my hand off the railing when I notice that it has become home to vine of vervain flowers. I hurry up the stairway, catching a glimpse of a petite foot decorated in gold shimmers just exiting the last step at the top.  
"Hey!" I call again.  
All the doors upstairs are closed except for one that opens all the way to the wall behind it. The room is alive with neon amber light from a stray streetlight on the corner of the street where this villa stands. I go to shake off my wet shoes, until I find that they're not wet at all. I go on to enter, taking one step per the recovering beat of music from the party downstairs, knowing I am now where the ghost wants me to be. There's one scuffed up wooden desk and a couple chairs randomly placed around the room; a couple unopened crates and stray suitcases of god knows what.  
But there, in the middle of said desk, is one strange looking box. It's coated with some sort of wildcat hide, held in place with small needles that substitute for the protective containers lack of bones.  
I remove the vervain-tainted pins from the sides and open the fragile lid, first looking over my shoulder for an audience. Inside I find an onerous, custom-welded sundial with a gold-toned face. There's no numbers or alphabet to follow; just markings of a woman in a phase from a walking position to sitting their knees...with a metamorphosis of her head, turning into a wolf's snout. Looks a couple of centuries old, untouched if not put inside that indigenous box with gloves first. I'm adequately taken by Tristan's lack of security around here tonight; rather, his ignorance to take care of his things. Kind of a joke for a guy who likes to seem clean-cut.  
A closer look and my heart jumps. My sunlight ring is handcuffed by one of the cutouts in the middle dial itself. It had to have been welded onto the object or someone did a really stupid magic trick with it to get it caught. With impatience, I gruffly sigh and make the choice to break the sun dial. But as I go to twist it, the very tip swerves voluntarily towards my chest. The dial no time-teller. It's a puzzle!  
I keep twisting it like a Rubix toy, hoping one will release my ring. Unconsciously, I've created the shape of tree with all the individual folding, squeaking, sharp, twisting pieces. The very last, at the bottom left of the thin metal game, is supposed to release the ring. Instead, it disappears like a jump cut in Hollywood.  
"Oh, hell no!" I growl irritably.  
The floorboards creak behind me. A daint hand comes out of the darkness  
A dainty hand extends from the darkest corner of the private room. It has my ring centered on the tips of red and gold-stained fingers. Two glowing eyes, each a different color, peer out at me as the moonlight shifts to hit them. She comes where I can see her, keeping my ring extended. Quickly, I take it from her. Her abundant, wavy hair sits over one shoulder that remains uncovered by the insufficient blue serape that wraps around her bare form. She's barefoot, covered head to toe in strange black, red, and gold facial symbols that fade away only when she's been fully established as "human" under the moonlight.  
"How long you been in there?" I ask.  
She answers with a tincture of a Hispanic accent in her voice and a tired, cold smile on her lips. "A while."  
"...And what do you want from me? From Tristan?"  
She nonchalantly wipes away a string of something dark dripping from her eye.  
"Right now? A little respect," answered the spirit.  
I groan as her nails rake at my chest and briskly burst through my elastic skin, grabbing at my heart and squeezing until I pass out.

**ELIJAH**

I knew tonight would somehow be rudely interrupted. I'm staring in the face of my drunken brother and his supposed friend, Lucien. The girls are indecent, just as I usually see them anywhere near either of these men. Without the intent to be so obvious, I observe of the masked dames creep away and up a nearby staircase while Niklaus ensures to make a mess of things.  
Niklaus starts shouting, "Tristan? Tristan! Come out, come out, wherever you are! Unless, of course, you're afraid!"  
"Niklaus," I sigh, stepping forward.  
He turns in an ungraceful manner to face me. I immediately know this childlike side of my brother.  
"Oh, you're hammered. Which should come as a very little surprise to anyone here, but it does hamper the festivities somewhat. So, could I recommend that you find the nearest exit?" I requested, "Could you take your playthings with you, too?"  
Klaus shoves his champagne glass into my hands, staggering farther into the ballroom.  
"You know, I used to find it insulting that I was barred from your special little club. But now, I realize that I lack the flexibility to become a member—I could never get my head far enough up my own ass," he slurs at the crowd.  
He bows and I exchange irritable glances. Lucien and their companions were delighted by Klaus' behavior. Nik walks back to me and takes the glass from my hand, downing the rest of the champagne.  
"Come on. Let's go. This party's dead anyway," Lucien called.  
I need air. I'm walking toward the gardens, but I stop when I hear a very alarming notice given to Aya by a servant.  
"It's gone," the woman tells Aya.  
I stop just behind the wall faces the staircase.  
"What?" Aya hisses.  
The woman clarifies, "The ring. I gave it to Mohinder as you ordered, but he thinks it may have already been stolen from his pocket. No one can find it."  
It brings a bit of a smile to my face. Just then, Marcel is coming down the staircase in a daze. He's looking down at his ring carefully.  
"You've taken it back and avoided the final test. How very admirable. We're leaving," I state abruptly.  
Marcel swallows, "We need to talk. I think Tristan has a new friend, and–"  
"The time has come!" Tristan's voice bellows.  
Marcel is hesitant to follow Tristan anywhere, but the reassuring look he gives me tells me I don't have to follow. It could cause a greater push for him to join them if I go.  
I can hear what goes on from downstairs, enjoying wine at the bar like that's all I need in this moment. Marcel claims the ring was found on the floor of the ballroom, but he knows exactly who took it.  
"I'm sorry, but I did not take your—"  
Marcel disrupts Aya. "Hold on, I didn't say it was you. You were just the middle woman. You slipped it off my finger when I arrived, and then you passed it onto Mohinder...the first member of the Strix I met tonight."  
Their voices are hollow from far away. I imagine him turning to Mohinder, hidden among thieves. I take a casual stroll through hired dancers, party-crashers and staring acquaintances.  
"Of course, as you know, that's only half the battle," Tristan assures Marcellus.  
I take my time going up the stairs. The electricity suddenly filters in and out of consciousness. The flickers startle some guests. Mohinder paces on thin floorboards.  
"There's no shame in dying at the hands of your superior," says he.  
Marcel scoffs, "Not much glory in it, either."  
Crash. The noise is loud, like a car ramming through someone's dwelling. I prefer to wait until it ends, but then there's a roar of a man in pain. I rush to the scene, worried it very well is Marcel, unprotected against the vile manners of my vampires. But it's not him.  
Seven vampires lie dead and pale out in the hallway. Marcel huddles in the corner of the room, wiping blood off his lip. Tristan De Martel has cowered to the floor, Aya and Mohinder hastening to his side. I'm not frightened. I take a step back when something moves against my newly shined loafers. It's too dark to be a hallucination of the floor, it moves too quickly and too oddly to call it a mere shoelace. It's a snake. Marcel is only viewing the creature disappear out into the party. I turn to see it off, but it evaporates into the air before my exhausted eyes. Tristan cusses under his breath as he lifts up his pant leg. The bite is swollen, graying and oozing a black liquid.  
"Who let her out..." Tristan begins to shout. "Who let her go!"  
The remaining vampires exchange glances. Aya turns to a dim item behind her on a desk, then glances about the room."Notify the security and search the party. Don't let her escape," she calmly commands. A slightly wounded Marcel skims the rim of the room and uses me for support. I escort him out before anyone can stop us. The vampires downstairs are taking turns staring at the staircase because they all know their leader is wounded. Marcel grips the staircase railing before reach the bottom. I follow his gaze. A tall man in black clothes watches us, turning away and rushes down a zig-zag path of people, out the door.

Later on in the night, Marcellus and I haven't had the chance to even consider what happened only an hour beforehand. We simply ogle at each other from opposite ends of the Abattoir courtyard, above the scene in which Lucien sits beside his young and tired foreseer. They were having a brief moment of reunion, whereas Freya had brought her back to us—it doesn't matter how ethical of a plan she had. In which there was a silence, I filled the room with the sound of explanation over talking to Marcel about it first. I don't think either of us could interpret it, anyway. Perhaps, Niklaus or Freya could.  
"A daylight ring returned by a venomous snake. Did it also ask of you to take a bite out of an apple?" Klaus jokes bitterly.  
His eyes are narrowed in the direction of Marcel. He appears as though he might be holding onto something more that occurred tonight.  
"Do not think it a coincidence, that creature sent Tristan into a panic. We need to trace the origin of the vermin—that manifestation. I have a feeling there is a party discounted seeking to undermine the Strix. And it looks as though were already at each other's necks," I suggest.  
"It was the ghost," Marcel confesses without looking up from his whiskey.  
Klaus turns his head towards him.  
Marcel swallows, "He had a spirit, a girl on this...enchanted totem. She led me to her and used my ring as a bargaining item so she could trick me into letting her go. I think she turned into the snake that bit Tristan."  
Klaus sneers, "Should I expect that you didn't want to speak up because the lass did you a grandiose favor?"  
He's unhappy with Marcel's choices tonight, and he has yet to be subtle about it.  
I question, "What did she look like? Did she have magic?"  
"She was definitely a witch, just not the kind you find around here," is all Marcel can say.  
"Did you see the weapon?" We hear Lucien ask the young witch Alexis, calling attention away from the topic at hand.  
I hear Alexis rhyme, "She doesn't like to be called that. Though, if you attempt it she can bring about more misfortune than a black cat."  
Klaus looks over at me specifically for clarification if she only speaks in patterns. Lucien repeats himself and she tries hard to give him a smile.  
"...This is much more than an armament... In order to understand, it must be seen," she replies.  
We all turn to face them. Lucien looks at me willingly. I walk forward as she offers me her hand. I'm slightly afraid of what I might see. I slow down the sinking of my fangs into her skin to ease her into it, unlike Klaus, who would stab his incisors into her flesh with animal instincts. She's showing me things—all too difficult to pull into focus except for those that I have to.  
There's blood everywhere...our belongings are destroyed. A woman with long red hair, her gun pointed directly at me. Finn appears; he's in an inconceivable type of pain. My heart skips a beat for every movement that goes against a pitch black scene, the thousands of golden eyes surrounding their leader's red orbs. My brother Kol's perished corpse. A symbol I recognize but can't quite put my finger on.  
Alexis is choking on something warm and rust-smelling. That is when she gives me the image I know best. The still bayou, still trying to wash away my past sins. A hand shoots out of the unbroken surface and latches onto the land. She stares straight at me with her heterochromatic eyes, but imaginatively moving past her, they are looking onward as Niklaus is torn to shreds by a mob of blurry faces.  
I come up for air, spitting out the blood I've drank.  
"She's—poisoned," I gag.  
Alexis promptly draws her last breath in the arms of Lucien. He panics, his heart breaking because he once felt a short and vague sentiment for the girl. Klaus and Marcel are waiting to see what I'll do next after I've regurgitated everything I've taken from her system. I don't want to tell them anything because then, I would have to tell them everything. For, you don't tell the children that there is a snake deep in the summer of your home—you take care of it yourself and you don't say a word.


	2. Just Me and You

**KLAUS**

The smell of lavender has never been an enticing smell when laced with blood. She makes herself obvious to us in that way, thinking herself a siren of vicious sailors. Every time I look upon the purple flora, my mind latches onto a charientism that targets my weakness and Aurora recognizes that.

Elijah kneels beside a freshly dead woman in our courtyard this morning, holding the poem left with the vulgar gift.

"I remember her to be a better poet," I sigh.

Elijah shakes his head. "I don't think this is lacking in poetry... We have two menacing women on our hands."

There is no shortage of malignant belles here, and I suppose our family is simply the blood honey that attracts the timeless uprooted maniacs once in a while. I could neglect to picture Aurora De Martel as the malevolent force that works on the same plane as a venomous witch, but this city is known to bring out the worst in others. It's how we intended it; and for us to be the judge of friend and foe illusions.

Our mystery witch could wait. I had to see Aurora for myself.

I touch Elijah lightly on the shoulder. "She wants to be found. Shall we?"

"Are you so incredibly eager? You haven't said her name in a millennium and neither have we, at your command," recalls Elijah.

I stop in my tracks, reckoning, "I won't wait so that she can place her calling cards all over my home, Elijah."

"If you're going... Listen to me first. The vision Alexis bestowed upon me...Aurora was in one of them, but she wasn't the only thrill of the past that bubbled to surface," he quickly summarizes.

He cannot to shy me away from the topic. Not after what she did to me and will attempt to do to me again.

"If you wish to tell me something that could possibly divide us then _te absolvo_, brother. We find her, we'll kill her together," I resolve.

I can see it in his face that he's not satisfied with that, but I simply can't heed to it.

**AURORA**

I'll be patient. I won't place too much hope into this reunion, although I am quietly confident that I can make this right. That you'll love me again, my dear Niklaus. A sweet agenda I've looked forward to since the break of morning.

Just this morning, I confirmed the florist girl was delivered with a clear and lovely message to him. Perhaps, I could've compelled her away, but where's the stage drama in that?  
I secured the floral shop to myself—it will be a quiet place for us to spend time alone. I consider all supernatural personae to be the exact same: offer them blood or sacrifice (or both) and you are in their good graces. I've never failed to predict these things, I swear I could be just as great of a wizard as the one Lucien is lusting after right now. Poor thing; though, I can't say it doesn't breed me approval at least one witch dies a day around here. They're the real nationalists, praying for their own private America in which all vampires suddenly drop dead. Maybe the flower wench was a witch; maybe I had performed a service to the community.

I thought I'd remembered to turn the "open" sign over to relay a contrary message. I suppose some can't take a hint. A dainty clacking noise appears behind me, a small tap to end the concert of noise suggesting someone is in front of the counter.

I'm admiring the custom orders on the shelves, asserting to the customer, "We're closed."

Although they do not speak a word after mine, I can feel eyes on the back of my neck. It makes the curly red tresses on the back of my neck stand on end as I recognize the moment is finally here.  
"Nik," I softly smile.  
I turn to face him. The name does not fit the personage.  
On my far left, a girl in a vintage black babydoll dress appears to be browsing the fresh boquets.  
"I'm sorry, did you not see the sign? We're _closed_," I buttress my warning.  
She turns her head slightly to me, her round multitone eyes ogling at me while her gentle fingers graze the fissured petal of a mauve callalily.  
"Oh, I'm not buying, I just came to pick something up? It's addressed to Tristan De Martel." puzzled, she reads the tag on the oriental fabric box.  
A delivery of flowers? To my brother?  
"What for? What's going on?" I frown.  
She shows me her empty, ringed palms. "I'm just the messenger."  
As I stroll away to get the bouquet, I keep an eye on her reflection in the glass over the framed portrait above the front counter.  
"You know, in Japan, they call them _higanbana. _Flowers that draw lost souls to their next reincarnation," I state.  
Her voice scrapes gravel, "I hear they only tell people those things to keep them from losing hope. After all, living in a monastery on the side of a dormant volcano? Kind of disheartening, no?"  
My heart skips a beat. I whip around, grabbing her throat and pinning her on her back to the cashier counter, leaning over her.  
"Who the hell are you?" I demand.  
"Your guardian angel," the woman jokes.  
The hand I don't use to squeeze her lovely neck pushes one long baby hair out of her green eye. "Such pretty eyes, I'm sure I'd have remembered them."  
The girl's facade of a graveyard statue follows the remote wandering of her eyes, away from my face.  
"You can tear them out if you like. They tend to grow back."  
I interrogate, "I'll keep that in mind. What do you want with my brother?"  
"You ever think maybe he's the one who picked the fight?" she mumbles.  
"That wasn't my question."  
"I don't see why you're protecting him. He's only brought you pain."  
"What do you know?"  
"I do my research. The De Martels are high on the list of the first vampire families. In any mainstream gamble, I'd bet high that you're one of the strongest. The ones times like this will have to do without. I don't want to kill you. Just pick up a few stolen goods and...watch you reap the consequences."  
"Consequences?" I chortle. "I take it your a witch with those kind of vague threats."  
"Not the kind you're used to."  
The girl brushes past my right shoulder, picking up the fresh, softly hued crimson lilies, examining them carefully between her fleshy talons. She plucks out a useless leaf amidst the floral heap and maneuvers toward the back of the shop.  
"Meaning?" I scoff.

The pliers punctuate my words with one loud _shnk._ The flowers drop like dead birds from the sky back onto the table, the bottom of their stems still in her white grip. She turns to me, face like a tranquilized beast who hasn't closed their eyes.

She decrees, "I'm the reason they still exist; that you're ten times my age."  
She takes my hands and wraps them around the spider lilies she holds while she maneuvers around the back room as if she had been here before.  
"And if you hurt me, if you can't do what I ask, Aurora... I can change that in a heartbeat. For everyone just like you."

She reaches behind me, her lioness breath brushing my shoulder as she tears a thick black ribbon from the stand just behind the supply chests. She finishes tying the ribbon around the arrangement.

"_Mira_. I may not be in the business of teaching others a lesson, but I have a good gauge of what girls like you will do for some attention. Even if it kills you. So, while we're talking in demands... This needs to be the last time you see Klaus. It's better for both of you—"

The bell on the shop door rings like a little bird.  
Both of our heads snap around like two twigs under foot. Niklaus looks us both in the eye, his wariness of me transferring into a sort of terror when he sees her.  
"Jezebel..." he swallows.  
She looks back at him, almost brighter in the eyes than before. Is this it? They know each other; is this where she steals my spotlight.  
"You knew about this. You wanted to ruin it," I growled at her.  
She rolls her eyes, licking her lips as she turns her head back to me.  
"Remember what we talked about. _Le acompaño en el sentimiento._ I have places to be."  
Klaus reaches out to her, but he's a step behind.  
The power in the room fleets for the moment, just enough time for her to disappear without the slightest trace of her presence prior.

**VINCENT GRIFFITH**

The gravel below my shoe soles crackles with every step. I look around the concaving row of crypts, struggling to stand tall on hilly terrain.

"Serve Her well, Seraphim, saved not by Heaven but by the sweet sound of jazz," I taunt her out of hiding.

An insect with long flappy wings brushes past my ear, making an itch in my heel rotate me around to see Jezebel, standing directly on the moon's lit path. The shiny white butterfly crawls across her left cheek and disappears into her black cloak of hair.

"So, you're still alive. Not aging well, apparently," she greets, pacing around to the front of me.

I greet her, "By aging poorly, you mean aging in general, right? I don't have to stall my youth like everyone else to get things done. Speaking of, I expected more of an entrance."

"Well, that's the whole point. People talk, don't they?" gradually, she responds. "Last time, I disturbed the peace, it was a literal hurricane."

Jezebel walks past me and into the threshold of the Black Clay Graveyard, the moonlight seeping down her back the further into the deadly garden she goes.

She claims, "This place just gets worse and worse. You'd think tourism would have spread enough wealth for some obvious renovations."  
"Well, when a girl known to cause monsoons has a habit of coming back to tie up loose ends, we like to keep things temporary," I mocked her.  
Unamused, she stops beside the grave sculpture of a child being overlooked by a marble angel, turning her head slightly.  
"Is that supposed to be—"  
I interpose, "A joke? It's a warning. Jez, you're as good as they come, but you have a century-long streak of bad luck trailing behind you. You know Tristan De Martel is dying?"

Her eyes glow a pale white in the light of the moon like a blind cat. I watch her disappear behind the corner of the Gibson musician crypt, the clack of her pointed boots going down the candlelit walkway.  
"Oh, of course, you do. You think getting him out of the way makes stopping the Murder of Seraphi any easier?" my voice echoes.

She intimidatingly appears in the grave doorway inches from my side.

"Tristan had no right to try and exploit me for his own gain. Regardless, that means he knows what my enemies would do to get their hands on me. He's going to make a deal with them. I had to do something," she purrs. "But, at least, now I know who has my body. It's him. It has to be him."

I mumble a charm beneath my breath that mystically awakens the undead candles of the junk candelabras of the Laveau grave.

I exclaim, "You're speculating, Jez! You always do this when you've got no plan. Now, I heard you the day I found your vinyl all those years ago. My ancestor, Celeste, she's on the prowl god knows where. And if we want to stop her for good, we gotta have numbers. So let me help you! Just heal Tristan, leave the sirelines alone. Look, I— I came lookin' for you tonight because the coven is afraid. They know you're here, you're still guilty under several pretenses that they haven't forgotten. The least you could do is make a statement of surrender to our laws. Maybe we can help you."

Her cat-like lashes doubtfully flutter an inch to closing, her head's horse tail of thick hair slipping over her bronze-plated collarbone.  
"Let's not pretend your coven's done me any good."  
"And you don't deserve their crap. You're a good kid, Jez, this I know. But you reinforced their fear of you when you fell off the deep end all those years ago. Tsunamis in Japan, earthquakes in California, mass hysteria in Italy, cult suicides in Switzerland- You aren't bending to natural law, and for some witches, that's a big deal."  
Her spiteful tone slowly deteriorates to a regretful mutter.  
"I did those things for the right reason," she narrowly pleads.  
"See, but I wasn't there!" I assert. "So how do I know that?"  
She falls silent again, more susceptible to my disappointment than anyone else's.  
"Jez. C'mon. Just surrender. The Murder will win when it's only you putting up the fight against them," I lecture. "Ask for help."

Jezebel asserts, her voice scraping a pile of bones, "I can save myself. I do that, and your precious coven has enough room to make it another millennium or so. I survived my family long before I met you. So don't pretend we're anything closer."  
Her nimble hands slip away from the frame of the Henderson mausoleum, and she disappears into thin air just as the sun is coming up.

**AYA**

He's broken a sweat so noticeable it appears as though he's been for a swim. They have his hands in theirs, Tristan's grip nearly bone-breaking. The snake venom coursing through his veins causes extensive pain in his major arteries and in his cranium.

"Her name—is Jezebel Zaragoza," Tristan swallows, bloodshot eyes glowering up at me. "She is what the witches call a Seraph...one of the oldest species of supernatural beings on the planet. She lacks a human form, and she's relying on spiritual energy to keep her afloat in this world. She can't do us much more harm than this without a human body, which...holds most of her power—"

He winces from another stroke of intense quivering.

I evade voicing my doubts, still questioning, "You still haven't told us _why_. Why does she have to be a part of this."  
"She's leverage. A priceless tool which...can speak of the end or a new beginning for vampires, werewolves...witches...! Her Holy Roller comes to collect in a month. If we don't have her, they'll—they'll kill us all. Everything we've built will be destroyed."

He tries to sit up, but I have the other members present lay him back on his loveseat. He is in no position to strain himself to be a leader at the moment.

"We hold the most recruits of high status witches than any coven around the world. We'll keep her at bay, surely," I take a chance on a promise.  
He pants heavily as though a new explanation will outdo his health.  
"Aya...that girl is vital. She is more than a witch," he swallows, bloodshot eyes glowering up at me, "She's one of the things that has created them."  
The unsightly terror in his ending syllable sends a ripple of discomfort down my spine. I even see some of our surrounding company becoming unsure of their position.

"Tristan," someone new breathes in our space.

A spastic head of fragile red curls comes speed-walking in, at her brother's side in an instant.

"Aurora. Aurora, what have you—"

"I escaped. I had to come, you know that," Miss De Martel pleas. "That wretched girl. What did she do to you!"

Tristan shushes his frantic sister with a gentle squeeze atop her knuckles.

Tristan commands, "You mustn't trifle with her, sister. Stay out of her way, unless you've already come to meddle with our sires. She's here for them. If you are not careful..."

This won't do. I don't know Aurora personally, but I know her reputation: a lunatic beyond one's sympathy. However, today is not the day I plan on upsetting her by sending her back or demanding she lock herself in a sanctuary somewhere on these streets. A display of truth, in which I am anxious of her, would make Aurora liable to do something far too precarious. Then, we are a step closer to defeat.

"You can trust me! I've already moved Rebekah. She's safe. If I can get to her brothers, they shall be—"

Tristan barks, sweat flying, "What?"

This can go on for some time.

"I suppose we'll begin with a standard sweep," I sigh.

I snap my fingers at the two newest men to join the Strix, Mario and Refta.  
"When you see her, don't hesitate. Take Arianne with you."  
They equip themselves with stakes, Refta leaving to find one of our witches.

I see him second guess his large strut and pause at the front entry.  
He bends down, a sample of the sunny day reflecting off something in his hands and into our eyes.

"This was outside," Refta tells me as he turns back to us.

He's holding a bouquet of ripe white lilies, a card attached to its bundle. I look from the ailing Tristan to Refta, shooing him away. I am handed the bouquet's card, where the sender's initials are mockingly signed off with a devil's horns and tail.

_"Ella no es peligrosa por saber lo que quiere, lo es por saber lo que vale." - dice D. Sant_

**KLAUS**

Watching her stand on the curbside with the rest of the on-looking tourists, my fingers twitched on the handle of the car door from pins and needles in my anxious veins.  
Her pensive expression gleams brighter than the burnt out streetlight bulbs in the SUV side mirror. Not one to acknowledge the trend in the jovial nature of city nightlife, she stays in one place with eyes on the horizon of tourists heads and the parallel side of the street, dissociating for all to see.

Elijah shuts the passenger door, though, I have yet to tear my eyes away from the passenger-side mirror. His puzzled silence tells me he has seen the same ghost.  
"What did she say to you?" he wonders.  
I lazily set me head against the passenger's headrest. "If she'd told me anything, I wouldn't be constantly quoting Aurora on what's be said, or for that matter, threatened."  
"This came to Marcel from the Strix gala photographer this morning," Elijah sighed.  
He put it on the dashboard for me, but I needn't look.  
"Jezebel Zaragoza was the uninvited guest at that party. Marcel confirmed she is the witch Tristan had in custody," continues my brother.  
"Why aren't we going out there and setting the record straight?" spitefully, I questioned. "You saw her die, Elijah!"  
"I was told she was dead, Niklaus, I didn't see the body which is the liable reason she is standing out there, people watching."  
My eyes collapse onto the photograph Elijah had brought to the dashboard. In the crowds of ballgowns and tuxedos, with red sharpie Marcel circled the reflection of the youngest person in the picture, eyes on me in the captured reflection of the localized decorations.  
Elijah stresses. "What do we do, brother? Why is she here?"  
"I'd rather focus my efforts on the sireline war at hand," I lie to myself aloud. "There will be consequences for her, Elijah, but in good time. Even if it means...I must do what I couldn't bring myself to long ago," I admit at last.  
The live mirage of Jezebel in my side mirror startles me. Once capturing my glance, she does well not to break it until the very last second when she is absorbed by the crowd.


	3. Revivescere

Content marked with a * in oncoming chapters indicate trigger warnings.

**ELIJAH MIKAELSON**

_October 9th, 1820_

I can't even begin to think what it was he saw in her. Conceivably, it was the overwhelming stench of challenge and the lovely tinge of a runted and sickly reynard in her agave-coated English was enough to spin him out of control. Niklaus could never resist a self-imposed damsel.  
Jezebel Zaragoza, come to find out, was actually the polar opposite of a wounded cub. She was the firestarter, holding the match at all times but never admitting the fault. To recognize faithlessness on first glance is near impossible, even for my family. So, her tale here began quite dire and bitter.

After a late night at the playhouse, I and my two above-ground siblings took the back streets towards the abattoir we'd moved into, afresh of troubles. Rebekah on both our arms, we took to the playful deconstruction of every moment of inferior acting that both King Claudius and Horatio had clung to for that particular production. Niklaus had seen it more times than the rest of us; for, he and Kol used to be avid fanatics of Shakespearean poetry and storylines.  
"No, no, no. You can't improvise such lines! That's why Ectadiné's productions fail to surprise," rued Niklaus.  
"'One can have the smile of a villain'—it's almost correct and means the exact same thing. Might I suggest finding a new deadcrush other than an aboriginal man who kills off every screen-child he creates?" Rebekah laughed in reply.  
Of course, he'd never let anyone tarnish a single sentence of his favorite play. "'One can smile, and smile, and be a villain', Rebekah! It is entirely too important to juxtapose!"  
"For God's sake, it's not even one of the main lines!" I remarked after my third time hearing this rant.  
"Right, right," Rebekah rolls her eyes, elbowing me gently in the rib as she continues to mock him. "His 'words fly up, his thoughts remain below: Words without thoughts never to heaven go'!"  
We exchange gracious smiles in the grand event of each other's company. We hardly had nights such as those anymore. What with the constant bickering in the house and are almost never-ending travels to keep father guessing—it seemed as though we were without each other in our own home, in our own city.  
When Rebekah realizes she's lost Klaus's arm, her head swims around like she's lost her glass slipper.  
He was standing but ten feet behind, watching war-faced beauty of a ship float beside the eastern dock in our harbor_. El Grito_, the side of the mid-sized ship read. The trimmings spoke of meso-american origin, and the pale green flags fearlessly wagged high in the air as if in surrender; they demanded more attention than necessary.  
"Well, well," Klaus visibly has an idea by the flash of his arms crossing. "As it seems, we won't have to deal with the governor's heinous excuse for an afterparty feast in the end."  
"Niklaus, we still agreed to make an appearance," I sighed. "Perhaps, save it for the walk home. We need not bloody our Sunday best."  
Of course, nothing rings louder in Niklaus's ears other than the little devil sitting on his shoulder—or, our sister's delicate voice. The only lass he'd ever promised to give anything and everything if she pleased.  
"Oh, come on. When was the last time we had a family dinner, just the three of us?" Rebekah chuckled, walking Niklaus's exact footsteps.  
Weekend nights tend to be my freedom from their nuisance personalities, but— What's the saying? _If you can't beat them, join them. _  
Overenthusiastic and still rocking through his third glass of whiskey, my brother politely helped our sister aboard, and playfully, near knocked me over the lip of the deck. With an air of irritated beginnings, I posted a stiff index finger in front of his face to warn him of the chances he was taking.  
The ship had fallen silent. That's how we knew it wasn't ever supposed to be here.  
Before Klaus could lift the hatch down to the crew's quarters, a young Latin gentleman flipped it open and quickly walked up on us to block our lingering curiosity.  
"_Perdón_, my crew is trying to sleep. We'll board by daybreak. _Señor_..." he tries to stop us.  
Klaus snickered, hands folded behind his back as he leaned into the boy's face, "Really, well, we were just in the neighborhood. Hoping to have you and your crew join us...for a little dinner."  
By the look on the young man's face, "dinner" was no foreign concept to his like. Dinner was not generously offered by toothy wolves like our brother.  
"I want a burly one," Rebekah decided. "Particularly, the most handsome."  
Niklaus wagged his finger at her, side-stepping to look past the young man.  
"Patience, sister. The pickier we are, the less likely we're to enjoy ourselves," I huffed, stepping forward. "Now, young man. It will be particularly easy on you to...just send a few of the crew members up here who will not be particularly missed. And...do pick a handsome one, at my sister's behest."  
Rebekah's grin was glowing, incredibly pleasured by the look of confusion and fear on the boy's face. She claimed to derive her adrenaline from it each time; this was true of each one of us. Yet, it was like I said once before when Klaus was (unsurprisingly) disregarding my lecture. It's a parsimonious individual that vampires need to be wary of. It is no supernatural luxury to be a step ahead.  
With loud, self-speaking footsteps, Klaus and I descent down into the dark of the cabins and wake a hoard of livestock and sleeping women, children. There were no men but three. Women, dirty in the face and up in the arms of their eldest sons. Children, orphaned or displaced from their nervous mother to remain in the shadows, waded by barrels of water and seeds in wait for the next part of their lives.  
"Wakey, wakey! I can't believe you were all planning to leave without bidding us _adios_! How incredibly rude, now, you at least owe us some explanation. Or some entertainment. Get a move on. Everyone out!" Klaus gleefully raised his voice.  
Like ducklings, he handpicked the ones who shook, who didn't understand a word of his, or who were ready to fight back. He claimed to be a connoisseur of blood type and females always seemed to have the best. Less of a chance of the blood having a tobacco tinge, I suppose. Of course, children were left to wait and see what their fates held, by Rebekah's request. She'd not see her brother kill the innocent. That was all good and righteous. But Niklaus had no quandary doing so behind her back.  
"Since I'm feeling generous, Sister, you can have first pick," offered the smiling Klaus.  
Moaned Rebekah, "Mm... What about the rest of them?"  
The ones that she couldn't have were the females. Most glared, decided her a traitor to her sex. Men knelt, eyes down or up at us cursing us with violent colloquial whispers.  
"Well, they may watch and help me burn down the vessel when we're done... Or they can trade places with the leftovers should they present a valid case."  
He teased the chin of one woman, barely on the cusp of eighteen and clinging to her serape as if it were a curtain between her and him.  
Rebekah circled them all, touching one teenage boy's hair, then cruelly knocking a beautifully embroidered hat off a quivering older man's head. She tickled the back of a veiled widow's neck. It became evident where I was wrong to engage in their form of fun at this point. I didn't seen _any_ luggage, belongings, means of possession in that ship. These people had ripped up their roots; they had tried moved on in the span of a night. This was just a dot on their map of a long road ahead. They were trying no harder than us when we left our home in the dust centuries ago. The vicious deity of empathy within me came rolling in. I now wanted to stop. Klaus would pout, Rebekah would go to the Governor's supper with a spoiled attitude and drag the idea of her union to Emil in circles around Klausuntil he snapped. Luckily, not a word from me had to be spoken.  
Rebekah finally picked the most pathetic woman, disregarding Klaus whining for her. The woman who sobbed a Spanish prayer. Rebekah exfoliated her prey with the initial grazing of fangs on her neck.  
The click of a loaded weapon made her stand straight and let go of the woman. Out of the corner of my eye lie the gorgeous shine of an outdated firearm in a pair of tiny hands.  
Klaus nonchalantly turned around, a challenging leer on his face. Looked as if we'd missed one.  
The girl, no older than eighteen, regarded us with her incredibly mean-spirited countenance. She reaked of dried blood and the stains of sulfur on her face were streaked by clear signs of dried tears. Nonetheless, she was stunning in the most sublime way. Her complexion had the tinge of raw amber honey, freckled by little brown dots; she was a zealot of sunlight and it showed even under the pale moon. The syrupy hair on her head reminded me of a sheep's overgrown wool. She wore a heavy trenchcoat with compliments of red that matched the embroidery of marigolds on the dress she wore without a bustle or train underneath.  
"You're convinced that you know what you're doing with that impish toy?" I scoffed.  
She didn't speak, nor look me in the face.  
Klaus turned to her in full, hand on the tip of the gun and planning to push it away. She let him approach, eyes fully engaged with his.  
The boy who had tried to block us from his precious cargo tried to step in between them, panicked for her more than the others.  
"No, please, don't hurt her. You can't—"  
"_Mantente fuera de esto_," the girl quickly demanded of the young man.  
"Smart girl! _You _should stay out of this!" gaily, says Klaus, turning his torso to push at the boy's chest.  
I held the young man out of the way for him. Those who had been onlookers relied on the girl's distraction in order to scurry back to the boat and hide. Rebekah disappointedly watched them go, knowing better than to follow should her Marseille-imported skirt be splattered with her own brain.  
Continued Klaus, "Clearly, she has a desire to die or...at least, hog my attention—"  
He touched the ends of her heavy tresses; I knew that'd be something that would get to him. Something about the virginous patience of uncut hair was one of his biggest weaknesses.  
As it emerged, she wasn't bound to one language.  
"Three bullets," she warned him, "Two are white oak. Take your chances. If you don't get one, your friends will."  
The very threat made Klaus slowly withdraw his hand from her dark void of ringlets and stifle his hunger for a moment longer.  
"What did you say?" Rebekah frowned, feeling as though she'd extrinsic daughter then aimed the gun at Rebekah.  
It was from this, we learned we were not alone in the world of being untouchable. She knew her resources and she was acquainted with what killed and what didn't. Still a question reigned for many years: Who gave her those white oak bullets and how did she know when to use them?  
"Alright, alright," Klaus leveled his tone to a much calmer volume.  
For defense, he rose his hands. He'd only surrender for those two bullets.  
He requested through gritted teeth, "Let's not be too hasty. Just tell us. Where did you get the white oak from?"  
"We won't hurt you if you relinquish your weapon to us," I promised.  
She was in no position to believe me after we'd tried to make a meal of her friends. But "friends" was a strong word. With our backs turned, the young captain had retreated to his ship whilst we dealt with the young woman thriving on a lack of sleep and possible headcold that drove her rough breathing. Quickly, he withdrew the rickety old boarding plank while looking the poor girl in the eyes. I could see him bidding her an apology. She was going to be stranded here with us. A fierce tigress suddenly turned into a lost kitten; a fire into dusty glitter.  
While distracted, Klaus made a grab for the weapon. She hit him across the jaw with its wooden mag, remembering her situation. She shot it in the air with Klaus curled over beneath the loud sound.  
"Get the fuck away from me," she howls. "Now!"  
When her glance met mine, I was overwhelmed by a sharp hue of pale jade in her left eye. It didn't correlate to the faded brown in her right eye. One was her sanity, the other her mania. And if the brown was her mania, it was not restricted from bleeding over into the corner of her jaded left. I grabbed Klaus's shoulder, drawing him back. Of course, Rebekah was still less than charmed. Without a window for reaction, the phobic girl is defeated by the pain and quick draw of blood from Rebekah's fangs.  
Rebekah spat it out instantaneously. The girl fell to the ground, dropping the weapon.  
"Gah!" Rebekah groaned. "She's drugged. Something's wrong with her!"  
It was no cause for any mercy. Klaus grasped the gun, emptying it quickly as if he believed the girl would wake. I rush to Rebekah, who covered her mouth as she doubled over.  
"Vervain... It has to be vervain," she croaks. "That smarts..."  
"Let's go. Leave her. She can die from the cold," Klaus panted. "We need to burn these. Now."

**JEZEBEL**

_October 11th_

I read a poem sometime before this day. It said, "If the entire world suddenly hid our elders away, children would run the world; and little would be different." At first, I wondered how this could be. Children are always born with new ideas, new ideas about living. But quickly I realized adults, too, live in the absence of their elders. They know what they were taught to survive, and their children reap the spare energy their elders have. And finally, I knew what it was that made this poet speak. I was in the Americas without my family, penniless, friendless, but not hopeless. I was born a hunter-gatherer. But there was little that bought me given the new problem I was about to encounter.

According to the papers, today was October eleventh in the year eighteen-twenty. _The closest concept I had to having eaten or drank something last was November thirteenth, eighteen-eighteen._ If I was right, someone had to have put me on that boat while I wasn't conscious—two years ago?  
Regardless. A pair of ranchers found me near the trade ship ports that morning and offered me a bed for the night outside the city. I was visibly sick, and their youngest son was studying to be a doctor. If he could exercise his learnings on me, surely, he'd do better in university.  
The host's wife adjusted the set of blankets she'd laid out on the floor of her bedroom, every now and then looking at me to see if I was still conscious.  
"Where were you headed?" she asked.  
"...I don't know," I generally responded. "I mean, I don't remember."  
She nodded as if she could comprehend it. "Must've hit your head good enough last night. And you're far too lovely to be traveling alone. Perhaps, I can convince my eldest to escort you to the nearest export pier in the East. He's done it time and again for others..."  
Her eyes strayed to a small cabinet on the far side of the room. There were several random items, such as a toy rabbit, a man's coat, a pair of badly vandalized Bibles, and even a cracked statue of the Virgin. They must have not belonged to them.  
"We always assume someone will come back for them, but...I know they won't," she lamented. "Times were far different before my boys."  
I shook my head softly, putting an extroverted hair from my braid behind my ear.  
"So long as he has some sort of cartography I can use, I can get there myself. I don't want to be—"  
My tight hand across my mouth and a throat blocked by vomit stopped me from finishing.  
She grabbed my arm, almost to support me as I hastily rose from the bedside.  
"There. There!" she warns me, pointing directly across the tiny farmhouse hallway.  
My knees crashed into the side of the tub as I regurgitated a barely-there heap of my last meal. I must have had a concussion of some kind, after all. I was awake enough to know the girl who'd bitten me wasn't kind enough to cushion my fall last night.  
"I'm sorry," I panted into my arm as my female savior cradled my shoulders from behind.  
"...Listen to me. If you're in any kind of trouble..."  
"I'm not," I panted. "I just want... I need to leave this place fast."  
A heavy knock comes at the door while we're going back and forth on the matter, and it isn't until the sound of a male's groan enters the room via echo that we stop talking to listen. There's silence. No talking, no nothing; not when we just heard a decently loud knock.  
Puzzled, Mrs. Miller gets to her feet and brushes off her skirt. "Forgive me, dear. I should see who's come for a visit."  
She disappears while I'm still slumped over the tubside, wiping my tongue and trying to swallow away the disgusting taste in my mouth.  
"Frank!" I caught the tinge of a shriek, and then, there's another heavy thud.  
My lip peeled over the side of my hand, my body frozen in place. The silence is excruciating. I should go out there, I assumed._ I should...I shouldn't._ I decide to help myself up, quietly walking out to the open parlor on the main floor of the home. There, in the tricky little hallway with all its bends and claustrophobic wallpaper, I equipped myself with a fire poker meant for the Millers' bedroom fireplace. They must have forgot to put it back by the hearth.  
"There you are!" the green-eyed vampire grinned his wolfish teeth at me, his hand around the Miller boy's bloody neck. "I've been meaning to have a chat with you."

**KLAUS**

She didn't let go of her pointy defense, standing against the wall for the first fifteen minutes I'd been in the house. I was well dismayed by her lack of nerves to threaten me today versus the night beforehand. Though, I wouldn't will it. She was a lean little thing—like a greyhound who'd drank out of a bayou marsh. I waited for her to come forward, blabbering excuses or explaining herself for threatening me with an empty gun. That's correct. It was empty the whole time. She wasted her last bullet on the blasted stars.  
That meant she was told by someone else the legend of the white oak tree. But who? That'd be one of my first questions.  
She must have been slightly shocked to find a vampire in her midst. I wouldn't traditionally be allowed in without the homeowner's final say. Fact of the matter was that the Millers' land belonged to the state and its republic, which made it a neutral ground.  
Mr. and Mrs. Miller were piled on top of one another like empty dinner plates in front of the fire mantle. Their eldest son's wrist was in my mouth, slowly turning blue much to the disappointment of my hearty appetite. She was turning green again, letting the fire poker fall from her hand with a janky collection of _clinks. _She took a seat the small table in the corner, where the couch would cover my platter of meatless bones.  
"You don't have to kill them," the girl belatedly said. "They didn't hurt you, I did."  
Too little too late. I hadn't seen Mr. Miller's fingers twitch in quite some time.  
As I dropped Mr. Miller's delectable wife from her limp seating on my knee, I watched her roll to the ground; I jovially lift my arms in their bloody sleeving.  
I rejoined, "Nonsense, darling! It's lunchtime. Now, you seem more reasonable than the night prior. I am glad we have a second chance to have a small discussion about that white oak."  
I patted the couch beside me, but she wouldn't move from her ghostly corner.  
"Oh, come now," I sighed, walking over to join her. "I don't bite as hard as my sister. Very clever, by the way. Fueling yourself with vervain on a long journey. You never know what sort of pirates you'll be dealing with, hopping port to port like that."  
She didn't refrain me from sitting close, her arms piled like measly logs on top of the tea table. "What are you talking about?"  
And by her expression, I suddenly conceived vervain was not a part of her preparations.  
"Well, surely you meant some sort of defense against the greater powers on your journey."  
Her eyes, glossy at the bottom lids, traced the room like a possessed doll.  
Admitted the lass, "It wasn't real white oak. I lied. You impeded me...you scared those poor people. There's little else I could have done."  
Delaying the pull of Elijah's stolen handkerchief from my pocket, I wiped my mouth.  
"All in good fun. Do you genuinely believe that was worse than what they could be facing at sea? Starvation, influenza, robbery, drunkards, tight spaces, et cetera?"  
She ripped the handkerchief from me, throwing it past me and leaning over me angrily.  
"You come in here acting like you have a right to be upset with me, but look at me. You stole something from me. You tried to steal from them. There's a word for fools like you, señor. I will let you know that you have one fucking choice here and that's to apologize. To me!" she spat, pointing her deft claw at me.

I smile, "I apologize that you found it so urgent to call my bluff rather than aborting your post on your watery steed." I'd done it. I'd flipped the woman's switch. Her chair flies out from behind her in a fiery rage, her hands around the collars of my Spanish silk blouse; the closer she gets, the more humidity swells between us on the hottest day in Louisiana. I dared her hand with a tempting gleam. She was about to bite. How I loved a woman with an intense vigor to spite me. But I see it in her face as something changes. She lets go of me, shaking her head with more control than her whitened fists. Her eyes redden, they branch with red twine. She doesn't cry for my insolence or for herself.  
"Don't drag me down whatever spiral you live in," she swallowed. "There's only room for one."  
She lets go and she leaves me, walking on slow feet towards the next room over.  
I watched her feet barely creep up past her heel as she walked. There had been the source of the dried blood I'd smelt on her last night. Her feet were browned by deltas of cracks and a sharp object's penetration. Whatever did that to her was the reason she could barely quake in my presence. She'd been drilled down by fear and now she was a nail in a floorboard shooting out to the other side, freed of commitment to fear's splinters.  
With her back turned like that, I could have struck. She'd be one less worry in this town. But unlucky enough for myself, she'd peaked my interest.  
She sat down in the kitchen, the back door opened and emitting gold and green light from the open yard where gnats frolicked amidst the dead plants on the corners of the makeshift porch. She was pulling every towel from the cabinets, every absorbant in the house that would stop the mass leakage of blood in the salon.  
"I admire your intensity," I complimented. "You know, I myself find a lot of my time dedicated to protecting what's mine. My family. And when their lives are threatened at the hand of a juvenile, no matter how trivial or impressive it may be, I have to ensure she doesn't try it again. Who told you about the white oak?"  
She sat on her knees in front of the cupboard, staring into the darkness and mold beneath the cuisine area.  
"I don't know. I just do," she vaguely responded.  
I exhaled calmly, deciding to kneel beside her, snatching away the rags. She regarded me harshly for it, the mutation between the colors of her outrageously round eyes like a whelp denied its reward.  
I proposed, "Do not forget, I have the ability to make your stay fairly difficult for you."  
She tries to catch my fingers in the crevice of the cupboard and its door, but I pull away fast enough to save their nimble nerves.  
Retorted the unyielding dame, "I can make this difficult _for you_."  
"A rather doubtful thing to say when I could see she was running from something. _The first thing I notice when I look at you, Sweetheart, is your eyes, _I thought._ They're riddled with anger, frustration, dare I say—issues of your own making. Regardless of who or what you are, or how innocent you may be...you'll only become a villain the longer you act like a victim_. "If you say a word about white oak," I tell her aloud, "to anyone or anything you intend to come in contact with, certainly, you can understand I'll have to scoop out that nasty tongue of yours."  
Upon my tart grimace, she stared. She stared until the silence left me to wander the cleaned freckle-detailed dew on her cafe-au-lait cast. Her papaya lips, their corners and frame casted a darker brown than the middle. Her curly darkest-brown head, extending to her rounded, skinned elbows. She stared I was unable to look at such agreeableness anymore.  
"We're going to go in there and you'll clean up your after yourself. Then, you may leave with my promise to never speak of it again. Or to you, for the matter. That's my price," surprisingly, she bargained in a much calmer tone.  
I was stunned, almost ashamed. She regarded me with such disappointment—something completely different than the experience of someone's hatred. It felt familiar; not as painful as Mikael's, but something along those lines. She wouldn't raise a hand to me, but she was also visibly tired of dealing with my type. The disappointment was flavored like aged scotch combined with a spoon of honey. It was a strange combination; but not pointless.  
She split the rags evenly, looking upon them grudgingly, as she left me squatting by wooden cabinets.  
Those tortured feet caught my gaze again. I still remembered the feeling of mine when we first fled Mikael, cleaning them of blood in even filthier rivers and straits. Scars never formed, I healed quickly. The iron tickle of knives in my heels never went away.  
"What is your name?" I asked her. "I should know the name with whom I share a binding pact."  
She turned her right side to face me, gazing over me.  
"It's Jezebel."

**REBEKAH**

_October 12th_

Rustling in the middle of the night. The offkey drumming beat of footsteps above my head went back and forth like a militia's parade. I sat straight up in my bed, my beloved Emil stirring beside me and beckoning me with a somber arm to stay under his arm. Holding the sheet to my chest, I exhaled roughly and brought my robe down off my head board.  
"I'm parched," I muttered, kissing Emil softly on the mouth and departing the bedroom.  
I tied my robe around my waist and sauntered down the hall towards the door of the garret. It was probably Nik. He was the family insomniac and a master of night terrors. Sometimes, he would go through his things, relive his old memories, and smash everything to pieces. That's how we lost a lot of fine china and chandeliers, of course.  
The space was directly above my chambers. My room was once Nik's, but he complained about the smell it casted from leaks, summer mold, and the dead bodies he would hoard up there for days. We became bored of it; now, he had the master.  
A body hunched over a dusty teal chest wriggled like larvae in the imprinted shadow of moonlight coming down from the high lone window we still didn't know how to close.  
"Nik," I scolded sleepily.  
My brother was caught off guard, turning to me with wide eyes and a face drained of color. Yet, I found I had the wrong brother.  
"Kol," I gasped. "What are you doing? We haven't seen you in months!"  
Not nearly as felicitous in seeing me, he proceeded to struggle and swim through centuries of our riches. Out behind him came old sketchbooks, clothes, jewels, horse reigns, unopened liquor, and other casual possessions.  
"Stay out of this, Rebekah, go back to bed," he whispered frantically.  
I crossed my arms softly, stepping towards him.  
"Instead, you should give me an explanation before I call Nik and Elijah."  
He wouldn't stop. He wouldn't listen. Coming up on one of his diaries, he lit up like a firefly there in darkness, flipping through it and moving his lips without sound.  
I raised my voice, "Now, Kol!"  
He shushed me, getting to his feet.  
"What part of 'stay out of this' do you misunderstand? Can't you just trust that I'm not here to cause damage?"  
"Your history of a hunger for attention speaks to say otherwise."  
"Rebekah, a life is at stake. A life that needs my help, and if I let her down— I might lose everything. Can you understand that?"  
"Kol, I'm your sister. Whatever is happening, I can help!"  
"I know. And I know you would try..."  
I take his shaking hand in mine.  
"Sometimes, we are not the best of friends, not the best of siblings. But we love you, Kol. I do," softly, I console him.  
His eyes full of shame and fear underneath the thick locks of hair fallen from his neatly pulled back style.  
"You want to help?" murmured he.  
I squeezed his hand with a loving smile on my face, believing I might be able to make him stay. I am sorely disappointed.  
"Well. You never saw me."  
I let go of him, shoving his hand back at his side.  
"But—"  
He was visibly irritated by my constant talking or just sorry he'd been caught. He grabbed my arm, threateningly squeezing with ten times the force I'd used on his much bigger palm.  
"Kol...you're hurting me," I protested.  
Then, he ruined our reunion with a charmingly facetious grin and lets go of my arm, defensively putting up his hands.  
Quietly, he simpers, "Don't worry. This is just a dream, is it not? If it's all the same to you, I'll be on my way. I love you, Beks."

**JEZEBEL**

I decided it was better to leave before the Millers woke. I'd stopped their bleeding in the best way I could; and with the vampire's help, they'd not remember a thing.  
I left a note regarding one of their horses I planned to ride through Texas and back to Mexico. I could forward the horses back to them once I made it. I just couldn't keep going without knowing what happened to family and what put me here.  
The winds were picking up, sweeping around leaves and dirt like small tornadoes all over the ground my distracted stallion insisted on trotting through as we went.  
I felt the ribbon holding my braid together slowly slip away, relinquishing my untameable locks to the dampening whirlwinds and atmospheric sounds of thunder.  
My stomach began to turn. I wasn't sure if it was hunger or if I had contracted something on the boat. Choosing to stop and let myself off the motion-sickness trap that was riding bareback, I let the horse graze on the side of the road as I wandered down the road, breathing in and out, and took some of the cold air into my lungs. Hunkering over, I started to wonder if the weight in my stomach was enough to make me plunge two fingers down my throat. I had never felt like this before. Something was different.  
Raising my head to check for any oncoming carriages or wild animals, I noticed a very thin white object peeking out from the silky field of wild grasses beside the horse. It was a lawn cross, one with little pink roses painted on it to mark the grave of a little girl.  
I'd seen it before. Twice, actually. Twice that day. In fact, I must have rode by wild grass that morning a number of times.  
I wasn't sick. I was under the influence of magic. Someone or something was trying to keep me in.  
Realizing I'd been going in loops for the last few hours, one last inhale shot up into my throat and gagged me.  
Still, I prayed I was just hallucinating or not getting enough air.  
Mounting my horse again, I rudely pulled its head away from its snack and kicked it as hard as I could into a running start.  
Five minutes passed. I hadn't gotten a sense of deja vu after seeing that field; not until I saw the road turn into a sharp curve of cypress trees and lead me directly back to the Miller farmhouse.  
The horse habitually slid into a stop right in front of the paved path leading to the rickety emerald front steps.  
Dismounting, I lightheadedly danced on two bare feet. My left wanted me to go back in the house and possibly meet my oppressor. My right wanted me to stand out in the open where a witness could find me.  
Something landed on the back hem of my hand-me-down prairie dress, forcing the neckline to shoot up towards my collarbones as two strong hands grabbed me from behind and pulled me away from the house.  
A dark-haired man, different from the one before, panted in my face with a furious sense of urgency.  
"I knew it. You're stuck in here, too!" he declared.  
"You. You know who's doing this?" I questioned.  
"What are you talking about?"  
"The vertigo spell I—can't reverse it if I don't know who's doing this!"  
The boy paused, nose wrinkling confusedly upon my complaints and lack of eye contact.  
"...You don't know who I am, do you?" He mumbled.  
"Should I!" I legitimately thought.  
"...Dammit. Dammit!" He huffed. "It doesn't matter. Hold still!"  
He clutched my forearm, his hand so much bigger than my own that his thumb and and ring finger could meet atop its tender anterior. My eyes fazed into a starry static that passes over into a zoetrope of images.  
It was a brooding wooden door, with hinges custom shaped to resemble griffins. There were vines, flowers, and fruits carved into its surface, almost like a design on fine china. My lungs stopped taking air, punished by the warm and blunt inhale of dust I couldn't cough out. I was panicking in a muffled way, and then I felt the sweaty touch of cotton on my mouth. And then I realized the sighs and drownings of pain were coming from the other side of the door.  
A ripped white shirt on a faceless body emerged from behind the door, the stranger's hand holding something gold and swinging swiftly.  
I tried to pull away, thinking I had all I needed to know. This boy was responsible. In one way or another, he was the reason I was here.  
The brown-eyed, hog-browed vampire still managed to shove a wrist full of blood into my mouth and nearly choke me with its disgusting flavor of rotten fruit and rusty copper.  
Clamping my mouth shut with brute strength, I had no choice but to swallow before I turned blue.  
Letting me go, I fell to my knees in the mud and tried to force two fingers down my throat. His wet strands of chestnut hair began to seep out of their ribbon binding as he hunkered down and pinned my arms on either side—just like the vision.  
"I'm sorry. You know that," he muttered.  
Pulling a dagger out of the belt around his burgundy waistcoat, he raised it to the grey, stormy sky and planned to strike.  
"_Revertum_," I cried out.  
A rivet of heat released from my skin and visibly infected his armed fist. His hand suddenly thrusted, not into me or my person, but into his own heart. Mouth agape and pretty eyes near out of his sockets in shock, his hold on me loosened. He drizzled into a grey state of living and lifelessness. He fell face flat into the mud, right next to my over-exhausted and unconscious self.

**CELESTE**

Death was a fine look on the girl's face, though, it had not come nor knocked even once. The death was in her fantasies, pouring out through her eyes and her restrained, limp ligaments. Her eyes would not meet ours; I'm not sure they could manage to make us out beneath the layers of jiggling tears on top of her ceiling-directed irises.  
Pressing a wet rag, fresh out of the pot on the room's fireplace, to her forehead, I pulled away the dark miniscule curls from her ears.  
"You did the right thing. He was going to hurt you both," I murmured, running my hand down her shoulders with enough pressure to warn her of her error. "But next time, I trust you'll move on with as little contact as possible. Like you should have."  
She mutely spoke, "Who are you?"  
Blinking away bulging snow globe tears, she rolled her head back towards me. Alexis and Parayah entered the room, cleaning her legs off and sterilizing their own hands in the scalding pot of water.  
"Who are you! Where are the Millers?" Jezebel swallowed, keeping a close eye on the two.  
I pet her hair, slowly cupping it down on my lap.  
"That depends. I can be a real godsend to you, Jezebel, or I can make things harder than they have to be," I told her. "Bring her the pale there."  
Parayah brought it forth, setting it beside Jezebel's headroom. The girl's eyes followed Parayah all the way out the small bedroom door, the swing in its heavy wood panels taking the time to slowly close. With all the footsteps echoing throughout the house, Jezebel got to thinking. "What do you want from me?"  
"The Millers will be away for the meantime. We need ample space to ensure you're in an environment where you can live safely for the next few months until Carmila arrives," I softly explained.  
The question sounded more like a question of how we got through the protective barrier she placed on the house before we arrived. I sensed it the second we walked through. Likewise, she had to know those spells can be broken if the Millers were more than just "away."  
"My mother? She's coming?" With a childlike gleam of curiosity, she wondered.  
"She's already here," I smiled, placing a gentle hand on her belly. "In a home of her own."  
My hand was slapped away, and her head ripped from the restrictive band my other palm created over her head. Standing before me, she covered the bare stomach which was in the beginnings of protrusion.  
"What are you saying?" She raised her voice.  
Three of my Seraphs came back in, filing around the back of her and I next to the bed.  
"How do you know my mother! Answer me!" Jezebel demanded.  
"I'm a Seraph witch, like you and your mother. I lead her former Murder of Seraphi and therefore, I'm responsible for restoring order after you so violently killed her. We needed her to survive, to keep nature balanced. It's been decided that you're going to change that for us. You will bare her new life. And when Nature comes calling for a balance after her rebirth, you are of equal power and blood—strong enough to replace her in the afterlife."  
She shook her head. "I won't let you force me to think this is all routine. You're violating me! You're going to make me die for something I don't believe in?"  
"But you did kill her. You see, not only did you tear her open when you were born...you stole her magic. You, yourself, were not ever supposed to exist," bitterly, Alexis howled.  
I rose a hand to her, begging her to hold her frustrations back.  
Jezebel turned on her heel to face the young witch who'd spoke, staring at her directly. I see Alexis and Vida's brows furrow, the back of Jezebel's curly head freeze.  
"What are you doing?" Panicked Alexis.  
I pull on Jezebel's shoulder, making her nude body face me instead. She was holding her breath. There is no spell for this, no way to make her stop other than physical violence.  
"Breathe," I hissed.  
Her eyes reddened and blinked from dryness, her mouth and nose cut off from releasing her carbon dioxide.  
"Breathe!" I screamed at her.  
Jezebel's eyes began to roll up, and Paraya jumped at the chance  
"_Aripostatum immaculand o' vor denos_!" She cried, hand on the back of Jezebel's head.  
Jezebel promptly fell forward with sleep, right into my arms. I didn't so much as bend to catch her, letting her tenderly lay between my forearms.  
"No raw foods for the next six months, remember. And certainly, no long distances. Good night Jezebel," I spoke softly, watching them take her back to bed. "Commence her examination. Quickly."

**REBEKAH**

_October 13th_

That morning, I awoke to an uneasy thought. 255,501 days. That included how many nights I went to bed believing in "Always and Forever." The fact of the matter is, we all had put so much faith into our bond that we never thought about how weak its joints were becoming... As weak as when we developed the vow—just children chasing each other with muddy hands in a Viking village in the North. It was good enough at first. We only needed each other and had no desire to invite others in to share our pain. Some of us changed.  
By this point I was almost eight hundred years old. I'd done almost everything, seen everything, heard everything I had ever hoped to; this did not include any of my brothers' support of my aspiring visions of having my own house, my own husband, and my own children, mayhaps. I could do better than the Mikaelson family name had done for me, I thought.  
In my mind, Elijah had the last say in what I could and couldn't do. He never told me along this always-and-forever ride that I couldn't fall in love or that I couldn't go and be on my own. He never would, or else he himself would be a hypocrite.  
It was only months before this October that Elijah had met a witch he lovingly knew as Celeste, and he had been over the moon ever since. She was one of the few who "worked" under the governor and his son, my beloved Emil, and had earned her privileges as a citizen of New Orleans. She was beautiful, educated, virtuous, and soft-spoken. She was exactly as I had pictured a woman made for Elijah to be.  
Of course, Klaus thought nothing of her but a nightly treat for Elijah. From the very start, I knew there was one thing about Celeste that would never sit right with Klaus: she was the lead in almost every witch-related happening around the city. Her coven was a pain in all of our asses, but there was not much to do about it when it was her hand Elijah had decided to ask for.  
I'd known about it for a week. Though, Nik was totally absorbed in his own melodramatics, I saw the ring in Celeste's finger she so desperately hid at first in the crook of Elijah's arm in the street. They whispered, schemed, couldn't leave the door open—it became more and more obvious. It was only a matter of time until "always and forever" was tested like this.  
"That isn't fair," Celeste exclaims.  
Elijah rebuttaled, "Fair to who? To you? How can you not trust me? Once you become a part of this family, I assure you I can change the—"  
"Not to me! To them! Elijah, you dote too much. The longer you let them rely on you, the less independent they become. I love that you want us to take care of your siblings, but you must know that...eventually it will end. How do you know they don't want to go their own way, too?"  
What bull. Albeit, she was right. Togetherness, as in twenty-four-seven togetherness, was a sentencing to go stir-crazy. It made Niklaus violent and out of sorts when it became too much or too little, and the longer I put my dreams on hold, the less time I had to make it happen.  
I stood with my back to the wall by Elijah's door, my embroidery in my hands as I listened.  
Solemnly, she expressed, "It also...isn't fair to me. I don't have nearly as many freedoms here, Elijah, and you know that. I'm willing to abandon my coven, how can you not do the same for me with your family? You still have a chance to ease them into the idea of our marriage."  
"Mexico, Celeste? How can that be any more salutary for us?" Elijah inquired.  
I hear her hands clasp around the sharp squareness of his jaw. "We've been going over this for weeks. A month! It's because I have something planned, and I want you to be there when it happens. When our world changes. I want to keep you at my side."  
"Tread carefully, mate. I've heard that one before," I heard the chime of Niklaus.  
The eerie sound of enthusiasm on his voice made me hiccup in surprise, and I swear I could see all three of our hearts leaping from our chests to the floor.  
I peered my head in to see that the connective door from Elijah's room to the kitchen's back staircase was impacted by the shape of Nik, leaning on the wall crowning.  
"Niklaus, how long have you been standing there?" Elijah flatly shared his anxiety.  
"Long enough," spat Niklaus. "So. What's this I hear about Mexico. Hm? Don't tell me you're eloping."  
Say something, I pleaded in my mind when a profound silence slapped against my ears. I couldn't see Niklaus or his expression, but I knew by the soft exhale of someone in the room that it wasn't any good.  
"We were thinking of having an official ceremony before we go. Here, with all of us," Elijah indirectly confirmed it.  
My stomach knots like a boa constrictor is squeezing it into an hour glass shape.  
"I see," Muttered Nik.  
"Nothing is decided without speaking with you and Bekah priorly, Klaus. Perhaps, we should invite her to join this conversation," Celeste panicked.  
Klaus advanced a step toward Celeste, who stood her ground as best she could in the face of an untrustworthy toad. "Oh, she's not going to miss much. I have to hand it to you, Celeste, whatever spell you have my brother under is really doing the trick. He's speaking nonsense."  
"Is that what you think?" cried Celeste. "It can't possibly be that we've fallen in love?"  
"Well, given you held off this long on such a strange secret, how can it last you? Face it. You've done him a round of favors, and by the time you're even at the altar—"  
"Niklaus, that's quite enough," Elijah scolded our brother.  
"You know, maybe we should bring Rebekah in here. See if she's with Emil. I can demonstrate in him what this family can do to leeches. I mean, witches," Niklaus threatened.  
Elijah never failed to defend my own search for happiness and safety. "That's perfectly fine. Push her away, too, like you will me if you cannot accept my decision making. I fear I've truly lost all hope you'll ever understand the needs of others, Niklaus, even your own siblings."  
"What is that supposed to mean?" Klaus barked.  
Ranted Elijah, "I had to wait a month before I could include you in this! Do you have any idea how that kills me? To know my brother is capable of ruining my engagement let alone my right to independence?"  
"Fine. Can you tell me why she wants to take you across the country and into a whole other continent? Has she told you?" Klaus anticipated foul play in this.  
"...Have you ever considered New Orleans isn't the best place on earth to have a family? To have opportunities? It's because of who makes the rules. That is what always and forever boils down to. If your prejudice against witches is what has kept her from feeling safe here, maybe we have no choice." Elijah stirs, pacing past Klaus in blocking his line of view of Celeste.  
"Well. Congratulations to you both," falsely, Klaus congratulated. "Just know. If you walk out that door, you'll have to walk on eggshells around my city. Because it will be trained to bite at your heels from then on, brother."  
"Don't let it be like this," Elijah pleaded.  
"You've made your choice. You've chosen to break off," Klaus assumed. "Consider my gift to you, a bride full of my blood."  
"What—"  
In a glance, he's behind Celeste, gnawing on her neck like a damned animal on a sheep carcass. She falls to the floor with a slight yelp, Elijah rushing to her side.  
"You know where I stash the blood samples. Help yourselves," Klaus called out, "if there's any left." 

**JEZEBEL**

Whenever I was sick in bed as a child, I would have this horrible cough that never seemed to cease. Sometimes, when I coughed too hard, my sides would hurt and my back would tense from the pain. Right at that moment, that was exactly what I was experiencing. I was stiffened by a mysterious soreness that, for once wasn't accompanied by a headcold, crippled me. That was only my body.  
Talking about it was no option. I didn't know anyone and if I told the church, I'd be shamed for being a single mother and hating what I had. Thinking about it was just as hard. I was going to be torn apart in the same way I had torn apart Carmila—and if I didn't die from blood loss, or from Celeste's hands around my neck, then I'd die from shock.  
If I couldn't change anything or find someone to help me, then I had to first stop panicking before I could understand what to do about my fate. I had to relax.  
The current on the river was strongest on nights like this when the moon was as full as it could get. I thought about jumping, but the whole plan I'd made since I'd arrived was to stay alive as long as I could—be it for the next six months or six days.  
I just loved the sound of running water, hitting sharp rocks and little tides rolling off each others' backs. My loose strands blew up towards the rooftops on the other side of the colossal river body. I tilted my head up towards the moon to keep them from blowing into my mouth. One big exhale, one cleared mind. I imagined the river parting for me until I could see all the pebbles, mud, and lost souls on its floors. I imagined it curling towards each other like the spirals on a striped housecat's coat.  
Then, I stepped with my right foot. It touched the water, but the solid formation underneath it was as thick as air-blown glass. I walked with caution, eyes remaining closed until I felt my ankles start to sink little by little into the deeper running part of the channel.  
My lashes fluttering to sprawl wide open, I saw the water had not parted but solidified to give me the floor I had wanted.  
The last time I did this, I fell right through because I couldn't keep concentration. I never had the room to practice, and I guess that was one of the benefits of being on my own. No restraints on what I could and couldn't do.  
I thought about the little white cross on the field in the labyrinth spell. I thought of it like some sort of omen. For me. For whatever was in me. If I hadn't known I was pregnant beforehand, and I had no idea of the consequences, I wondered what my father would have said. He wasn't particularly cruel or condescending or controlling, but he loved the word "honor." I knew I would have disappointed him. I _was_ disappointing him. Perhaps, he sent me away without a clue as to where I would end up because he already knew. _Would he do that...?_  
The drop in my focus almost knocked away the invisible walkway from my feet on the water's surface.  
I simply couldn't remember anything at all between now and two years ago. This applied to most other things, like whether or not I knew the boy I'd killed well enough to tell him what was happening to me and who Celeste was. Perhaps, I once trusted the boy enough to tell him where I'd go; that would also mean I killed my only friend in this...  
I was so damn guilty of everything even if it wasn't my fault or any sort of malice. Simultaneously, I somehow managed to take on a feeling of guilt for that girl buried in the field with little pink roses on the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It was impossible for it to be true, nonetheless, maybe I should have said a prayer for her as I passed.  
The nightly walk eventually wasn't working to uplift me anymore. I turned around and brought myself back onto the sloping offroad riverfront, picking my shoes back up and lacing them back onto my soaked feet as tight as their laces could draw.  
When I sat up again and faced the shadowy indication of oncoming people, I was surprised to see but one I recognized. The vampire Klaus, a bottle in hand and shoulders arched inward slumped along the isolated riverside road, his sullen explain illuminated on one side of his face.  
He did a double-take and nearly knocked himself backwards when he saw me sitting there, looking back at him.  
"What are you doing?" I asked him.  
In an intrigued slur, he repeated back to me, "What are _you_ doing out here all by your lonesome?"  
I stood up to get a better look at him and instead caught a whiff of moonshine coming off his clothing. It came with a dismal indication he was drinking to forget. I've always been too fucking empathetic for my own good. It somehow converted itself into a superpower. I felt greatly for the man.  
"You're drunk," I sighed tediously.  
He almost laughed like I'd made a joke.  
"A necessity for having a decent night on the town. Call me impulsive," he charismatically replied. "What's say you join me?"  
I pressed a reluctant hand against his imposing chest leaning on my arm. I blocked his hands from rounding my lower back. "I don't think it will do me any better than it has you."  
"Oh, come down from your high horse. You don't appetize me. Let me prove it—"  
And his head came close. I ducked.  
"You shouldn't be out here. Let me walk you home," I intervened harshly.  
He took his arm away from me as soon as I had begun to turn him back towards the rows of portside French Quarter homes and businesses.  
Growling in opposition, Klaus assured, "I can navigate my own way home. I suggest you take your own advice before you bother me any further."  
He was a neurotic drunk. It was ironic; I won't talk about it too much. But it put me in a panic. Regardless of how he and I started off, I knew what made even the undead and supernatural turn into a helpless mess. Heartache. Or denial. Sometimes, it was both. It ruined almost everything for me. I didn't wish that anyone else.  
"Please, don't go alone," I blurted, grabbing his wrist again. "If you don't want to go there, then we'll go somewhere else."  
Klaus wouldn't move. He was either high on his own wariness of me or plotting to run away at top speed. I pulled on his wrist twice or more.  
"You know, I've spent a fair amount of my time divulging in my family's needs. Yet, they never can dance to the beat of any of my own expectations and values. Of course, the half-sibling always gets the last shred of decency."  
He didn't really think that; I didn't share in his thoughts, but he wasn't technically of sound mind. I opened my mouth to stop him, but watching him put the cobalt bottle to his lips again, he spoke faster than I could form words after he'd swallowed.  
"Elijah's been the captain of our ship since the dawn of time, and by far, his decisions have become no better than mine. We glorify him as the respectable one. He's a glutton, and he knows it! He's the glutton, not me. And Rebekah! Oh, Rebekah. I count you know. I've counted every single time she's tried to leave. Seventy-two. 'And I'll not come back' she says. Now feast your eyes! She's sympathizing over me. Staying, because she thinks I'm a monster who protects her heart-"  
My hands quickly wrap around his head as I drive his tortured mind into a hibernation caused by my touch. My hands pulsate with heat as he suddenly falls onto me and trusts me with all his weight in my forearms.

**KLAUS**

_October 14th_

The most modern time I had experienced a dream state was when I was no older than twelve. I dreamt Mikael had given us all matching beds of flowers and asked us to lay in them until he told us to get up. For the entirety of the dream, we all lay in our seven itching bedsteads and waited. We saw the sun come out and fall out of sight more than once. And by the end of the dream, I looked over at my siblings and they each had rotted away to nothing in their purple-flowered places of rest.  
It was the worst, needless to say, and for centuries I had faith in the idea that I had perhaps wished them away.  
Last night, I had none other than one of these horrific dreams.  
There was a girl walking towards me. I couldn't see her face, but the kinked ripples in her hair reminded me of the very first gentlewoman I'd adored and then disdained. The closer she came, I discovered she wasn't walking on anything but the water. In a matter of seconds, she'd come to stand in front of me and the sun was risen and all was bright. I thought I might have known this girl in my dream better than anyone, and I was ecstatic to see her. I was going to speak to her and ask her to stay until she reached up and grabbed the synthetic sun and burst into radiant red flames. When the sun had died, so had she. She had screamed, rotting to a tree of bones and wrapping her embered limbs around me. It was dark again when I woke.  
The room was tinged by the grey overcast outside, leaving me with a calmer presence than the one in my head. Jezebel pressed her cold palm into my forehead to hinder me from sitting up too briskly.  
I rejoiced in my foresight that the blackness of death wasn't authentic, but I was solemnly disgruntled by the feeling of confusion as to why I was back in the Miller house.  
Her blank, dark-circled flash reminded me of one telling detail. She had knocked me unconscious.  
Sitting on her knees beside the feather-splintered sofa, she set down a turquoise teacup next to my outstretched hand on the den's loveseat, I shot her my confident attention of distrust.  
She scoffed at me. "_No me mires como eso_. As if I'd waste my time endeavoring to poison you. It's just coffee with fennel and rosemary. It won't help your headache, but you will think more clearly. It will be a first for you."  
I eased my haste to sit up upon her clever knock against my ability to think.  
"Given the circumstances by which you came, I wouldn't ignore previous threats on my life with like-structured herbs," I groaned.  
Her hair was about to fall loose from its hastily braided styling behind her left ear. The metal comb by which she'd lain in the fireplace to straighten her curls still sat in a porcelain dish to cool. The sleekness of her locks made it harder to keep her style in place. I watched her pull an enormous pin from its slant and the alluring braid roll forward to unwrap. It was a thing of a moving portrait. "You were so inebriated last night, I would've taken my chances then. But you woke up this morning, no doubt only victimized by brain fog and embarrassment."  
I sat up all the way, and she moved back on the small table to allow my knees the room to move.  
"Am I to believe this was an act of empathy alone? Or were you praying I'd already forgotten you tried to shoot me at point-blank? I suppose I should be groveling with gratitude for that, as well."  
"Well, it has to be empathy because I can aim and I can aim well," she suspired.  
She tapped the side of the teacup with those luxurious sturdy almond nails, still lined with blood from our early spring cleaning. "If you finish that, maybe it will help get your head out of your ass before the Millers come back."  
Taking a look around the desolate palette of gem tones in the emerald living room, I noticed the looming stillness in the house. There were no shoes by the back entry and no dirty dishes to be seen through the archway in the tiny kitchen area behind us.  
"Wouldn't want them to discover your habit of letting strangers blackout on the furniture in your den," I mocked her, one brow pushing upwards.  
She blinked slowly in the seconds-delay of her answer, eyes shifting towards the side of the room.  
"They've gone hunting North of here. They shouldn't be back for a while," she informed me. "I know I'll have to move on soon, but I'd like to do so without being evicted for something like this. And for your interest, I hardly consider you a stranger."  
Quenching my lips with my tongue, I looked down at my cup. "I'm suspecting there was something I said—"  
Picking up the bowl she'd been using to chill her hands for my forehead, she bit her lips together before cutting me off. "Several things, but nothing unusual for a spoiled city boy."  
She took her chances on saying such, but I still smile at her perception of me. Watching her retreat back into the kitchen area, she tosses the water out the window into the bushes and leaves it for cleaning later on.  
Jezebel didn't occupy herself with ways to get me out or to rehash the prior battle between us. When she returned to my side, she sat down again with her elbows resting on her knees. She propped the ball of her palm under her chin and curled her fingers in while she marked the morning outside unfolding in hues of glittering yellow and cloudy silver.  
The constant state of curiosity one could find in her face suggested that there was something more than me on her mind. I came upon the thought that I never questioned why Jezebel was out in the middle of the night, loitering in darkness all by herself. I could have been alright with assuming she was brooding on her purpose or simply waiting for the next mass murder to come along (ironic enough) and put her out of her misery.  
Just the air, like a shadow on her back, about her spoke of genuine concern and preciseness in everything she did. It didn't help me that the same air was scented like cloves and amber overtaking tobacco—and was thrice as addictive.  
I spoke, "It was near the early hours when I walked out on that pier. I count you were holding out for your outlaw ship to return."  
Relinquishing her hand from her face, she turned herself back towards me. Her head followed the slow path of her shoulders, tearing away from the dewy day outside.  
"I've decided to stay. It's the first time I've been on my own. I know my father can't always provide for me. I'm sure that's probably why he put me on that ship. It's better if it happens now," she shared.  
I knew a rehearsed excuse when I heard one, even from a tender, somber voice as convincing as hers.  
"So, he's the one who sent you adrift with a load of strangers?" I disputed.  
Putting some hair behind her ear, she straightened her back and glanced at the carpet beside us.  
"I don't know. I'll be honest, I'm missing a few things from my memory. But I know why I was out on the pier whe you came. I went out there because I was upset about something else. I was going to do something," she swallowed mid-sentence, "awful to take care of it."  
Of course, I couldn't help but imagine the tragic suicide I could have resulted walking into. It wouldn't have sobered me, but it would have done well to astound me. From day one, this girl had made it clear she intended to pull herself out of hell by her front teeth or to take the next rascal down with her. I could have been missing something, but it would be hard to get the full story from a mere acquaintance who hadn't told me so much as her name and ultimate agenda.  
Jezebel added, "When you came along, I didn't see why I should let you do anything as ridiculous."  
"You are cognizant it makes no difference if I had walked off that pier?" I scoffed.  
She smiled slightly. "Yes. But it's still painful each time, isn't it? Dying?"  
I could have gone over the mechanics and thousands of sciences it took to explain the death of a vampire—I'm sure she would have been a fanatic for it had I already been aware of her obsession with the sciences—but for that moment, I was withholding my own vulnerabilities.  
Instead, I invited, "If I hadn't been there, would you still have done it? This terrible thing?"  
She seemed to laugh at the idea now, shaking her head at her own stupidity. "I think I would have deserved it, but I also think I am stubborn enough to have let freezing cold water stop me," she considered. "And I hope for your sake, whatever brought you to that pier passes you by, Niklaus. I'd be disappointed to see a worthy adversary unravel so easily."  
She stood from her seat, her hand falling on my wrist and gliding off the cotton of my sleeve. The thin nails of her ring finger and pinky stimulated the skin over my thudding vein, the upright hairs on my arms reaching back.  
"That's the thing about adversaries. Sometimes, they fold with the settle of a score," I told her, getting to my feet.  
Jezebel met me at the door with my jacket, a thin smile rising and falling from her lips as she idled for me to put it on.  
The button on the cuff taps against the rim of the crooked handcrafted foyer table, rattling something on top. That rattle came from a thick-banded ring, decorated with branches and vine-like shapes that connected to the feet of a capital M.  
My heart skipped a beat, knowing it was just last Christmas that Rebekah had personally requested two more be made in its likeness for Elijah and myself. Elijah never took his off, mine sat in a drawer at home where it was restrained from contact with my painting supplies.  
"Where did you find this?" I frowned, picking up the ring.  
"The Miller's boy found it yesterday on the trails outside the you seen it before?" she answered.  
I had. What I failed to understand was why Kol would ever leave it to rust in the rain and soil of the home he once embraced.


	4. The Three Evils

**KLAUS**

On Saturdays, the Apothecaire Fair the witches insist on putting at the center of the Tréme is less of an attraction to the locals. They just came to stare, some with desperate anger and others with pity. There isn't a shortage of eyes that linger on Jezebel. All she has to do is sit there in front of a cold Irish coffee. One would have it that I'm not envious of such incredible amounts of attention, but I admit, I'm turning green.  
I've had witches spit at my feet, call me foul names to my devilishly grinning face, and of course, attempt to kill me upon first sight. But for her, they all keep a respectful distance and do not speak or breathe so much as a slanderous hiss in her direction.  
She is just like a fragile sculpture from hellish Pompeii, new to the exhibit. she somehow survived the years without a crack on her surface through the harshest elements, yet, your hands will still blacken with soot pain if you touch her.  
Animals are an exception. One blue-haired tourist passes with a big black canine, muzzled in purple fuzz fabric; it begins to defy the general flow of the excited street and bark at the back of Jezebel's head. Then, it gets more vicious, nearly knocking its owner back as it stands on its hind legs to try and get free. Jezebel turns her head, not a wrinkle on her forehead or general look of malice. The dog halts barking and suddenly breaks free. Head down anxiously, it approaches her with rolling shoulders and big pupils.  
"Dawn!" The tourist calls to him angrily.  
Jezebel snaps her fingers in front of the dog. It sits, panting happily as though it has found peace on the other side of the café fence between them.  
"I'm so sorry, he's been acting so weird today!" the tourist apologizes to Jezebel.  
She reaches through the iron welding and puts a soothing hand on its head, it frantically begins to sniff and lick.  
"He's very sweet, I bet he makes a good companion," Jezebel comments, scratching the obviously disturbed animal behind the ear.  
Reverting to pup-like habits, it leans into her gentle touch.  
"He is... How did you do that, by the way?" The tourist laughs awkwardly.  
"Just a dog person," distantly, she smiles.  
The tourist quickly puts a cage-like structure around the animal's mouth while he's distracted, using a high-frequency voice while he's distracted by his new human friend. The animal is pulled off on a leather-laced leash, its owner rejoining her friends.  
Calmly, Jezebel reaching into her coat for something small and glittered.  
At a normal volume, my sensitive hearing stretches across the crowded street to catch her kind message to Elijah and I.  
"The dog has stitches on his right leg," she brings out an unsurprising Sobranies cigarette, "That's probably why she puts that thing around his mouth. Pain makes animals bite, but..."  
She releases the smoke withheld in her mouth.  
"Sometimes, they are taught patterns. Like Pavlov's dogs. To salivate for a bell—_pero_, in this case, the dog saw me lick my teeth which is just a common predatorial move. So, he challenged me. Only there's a pressure point in front of the ear that triggers a rush of dopamine to the brain. It was easy to change his mind. I guess I'm suggesting before you come over here, you figure I know your pressure points better than I know a domestic housedog's."  
Elijah and I recover each other's goal-oriented gazes with habitual ease.  
"Now, that sounds like an invitation," he simpers slightly.  
Jezebel taps the cancer stick over the edge of the heavy napkin underneath her drink. We've already put ourselves across from her by the time she returns our glances.  
Elijah tries a polite approach. "Jezebel. What a pleasure to see you."  
She slackens back against the chair.  
"Then, don't look so upset." She talks over the noise of the outdoor fan above us.  
"We apologize for the belated greeting, but now's better than never, no? What are you doing here?" immediately, I interrogate.  
More importantly, how could she be alive? Of course, I was warned of boundaries before I walked out my front door today.  
Jezebel thrusts her perpetual ponytail off her shoulder.  
"Resenting how many people think sitting alone is an invite for conversation. Why, what are you doing?" she casually remarks.  
Elijah rejects her offering of emerald-tipped cigarettes for the both of us.  
"Regardless of why she's here, Niklaus, I think we should simply address the big rule in our city before she commits another overnight fiasco."  
"Is that what we're calling it now? Oh, you're full of it," she squints her eyes doubtfully at him.  
Elijah continues, "It's been told you are accountable for causing a ruckus at the Strix party on Halloween, the poisoning of Tristan De Martel and possibly Lucien Castle's Seer, and conspiring with the Regent of New Orleans. Do you decline the charges?"  
Jezebel responds softly, "I decline conspiracy. I had a conversation with a close friend in private. _But _Alexis... She's not a Seer. She was a Seraph. You would experience a lot more concern if she had lived."  
The name alone brings a skeptical simper to my face. "A guardian angel. How fanciful."  
"A Seraph is a natural-born immortal, a species of witch. I am one, Alexis was one, and if you remember Celeste, she was the one leading us off the edge of a cliff."  
My head swiveled to my brother beside me. The pensive finger he leaned against his lip shot back down into his fist and made his Rolex rattle like a snake.  
"How coincidental any bodycount with you always entails one of your own kind. I do believe we've seen that elsewhere, haven't we, Niklaus?"  
His reference to Mikael spurs her into an angry sneer across her freckled nose.

Polite enough not to blow it straight into our faces, the wisps of grey smoke seeping from the corners of her lips turn into a big cloud that retreats from the exterior world through her nostrils, connected by a golden septum. When it dissipates her head shifts in my direction.  
"Let's get to the point. I'm not going to bend mountains for Tristan's recovery if that is what this is about. I didn't come for retaliation regardless of what those women did to me. I didn't save Marcel from making a huge mistake just because I thought I owed your family one. I came because he stole from me and I'm not leaving until I get it back."  
"And what exactly is it you desire from a bargain weasel such as Tristan?" I inquire.  
She puts out her fiery stub in the bundled and damp napkin.  
"Nothing you can afford," she mocks.  
I trap her chilly hand on the metal welding of the tabletop to restrain her departure a little longer.

"As much of a blessing Tristan's quick demise would be to us, he holds a set of very important items at the moment. He's the only one who will tell us where they are," I state.  
Her pupils dilate like a coyote in headlights the longer they train on mine. "Mikaelsons travel in threes. Where's Rebekah?"  
I merrily exhale at her understanding.  
To Elijah, I say, "I always had a penchant for negotiating with witches. They prevail in the strangest ways."  
He nods down at the table, adjusting himself in his seat. He's bored with this exchange already.

"I pity you, but not that much. I'm not going to save Tristan if I can't make my point," Jezebel claims.  
"I understand there's been talk the Strix is looking to get you back under their veiny wing. As there is something of theirs you're looking to retrieve—however gruesome. I understand you came by..._vessel_, back to this city. If we ransacked your hideaway, which I'm certain the witches can help us find, and found this magical sundial of yours, we could use it for our own purposes to get back our sister. I hope I've accurately persuaded you. Otherwise, I'd quite like to see what others would give for a thrift exchange of a genie in a bottle for Rebekah," I threaten.  
She is certain, "You wouldn't do that."  
"On the contrary. We're not sparing feelings here, are we?" I counter.  
"Of course, not."  
"Then what's the hesitation?"  
In saying so, I cause an intense silence between us that somehow leads to a very simply surrender. Jezebel rips the sapphire poison locket off her neck resentfully and sets it down on the iron surface next to Elijah's hand. I pick it up boastfully, ensuring it has contents inside. Then, Elijah stops me.  
His head turned towards me, peripherally, he shows Jezebel his suspicion.  
"What do we owe you by taking this? How do we know this is real?" He questions her.  
Jezebel stands to adjust the hot red colors of her meager clothing.  
"I actually believe Rebekah is worthy of my consideration. Whatever's going on, she doesn't deserve it," Jezebel addresses her decision sourly. "If you don't think it's real, what can I tell you other than you give me too much credit for being a scam?"  
She walks past us, swinging around to the other side of the fencing between us, now equipped with red sunglasses to match the plastic aesthetic of her skirt.  
"_Buen' muerte_, _cabrones_. Kiss the rabbit's foot you don't see me again."  
Slapping her fingers of stacked rings on the fencing near my head like a cellmate, she continues down the road without even a second regard for the people who control the confetti-stained road she treads on.

**ELIJAH**

Time deprives us of the sweet and quick memory of real love, keeping it at the bottom of the toy chest as new and less important brushes with passion come and go. That is why I apprehend the same blunder once learned with Aurora. Though, conceivably, what I did to Jezebel was entirely worse than a cruel compulsion.  
This family has an unfortunate toll on the bodies it tries to embrace. There is a known few who have survived our traditions and our vows, but those same few always seem to come back to us, still in love or overtaken by bitter frost.  
Aurora drifts in the purgatory of our good graces. Niklaus was looking at a reflection of his flaws in Aurora, Aurora who was so alone she would love anyone who showed genuine interest in her. That is what I was convinced of when I compelled her to break his heart: they were simply in love with the idea of being loved. He's only been at the whim of Aurora's fantasies in order to get to Rebekah's stolen corpse. I have to believe that; I have to know that there is no going back.  
Perhaps, that's the only kind thing the early Autumn pollen by the name of Jezebel ever did for me.  
It was hard to say if he ever loved her. She was a clever but miserable girl who washed up on the shore and decided to invade our world. Yet, she was everything he lacked. She wanted to protect him, to make him laugh, to teach him, to prove he was cared for, _to be somebody _he could not forget. But it was never for the sake of Klaus's love; she made mistake after mistake and she didn't know how to fix it other than fixing someone else.  
Much like where our stage is set on this Thanksgiving day, between two brothers and three misfits at a table tainted by the mutual hands that dripped with the blood of each other's sireline.

"It's all been to protect you, respectively. Lucien and I have always been enemies, but if we had arrived together as allies with news of a bleak future, you would have doubted us. It was maintaining appearances," Tristan excuses his band of allies around the Thanksgiving table. "We came to protect you and ourselves. We have never wavered on this point."  
Klaus lackadaisically answers, "And the bodies on my streets? Also your protection?"  
"Now that's just business. Old tactics for success," Lucien says, "is a frightened human populace. It is much easier to control. If tourism should decline and the local vampires are deprived of fresh blood, well, you saw how quickly Marcel joined hands with us."  
My brother mockingly laughs at them all. "Pedestrian. I would have expected something more from such glamorized theatrics."  
Lucien leans toward him. "Well, you're not going to let us take all the blame are you? There's a killer snake charmer on the loose with a heavy record for disaster."  
"I have been endlessly imagining the reasons, so pray tell, what did Tristan have to do to be next on her list?" I question. "Speaking of whom, did she not get the invitation?"  
"You've offered the girl a seat at the table of five vampires with underlying tendencies to discriminate against witch-kind, two of said vampires she has had a romantic history with. And, we're eating dead animals on one of two holidays she despises. In other words, you told her a joke," Lucien comments.  
Niklaus appears to see the reasoning in that.

Aurora is visibly irritated with this amount of discussion of another girl in front of Niklaus. She was threatened by the girl, after all. Learning that Niklaus jumped on the allure of Jezebel's sharp Latin tongue and prance of the "lost lamb" apparently put Aurora farther from reasonable conclusion that it was, in fact, over.  
She downplays her envy well.  
Aurora says to Tristan, "Brother, you had something you desperately wanted to share with our hosts?"  
"Yes. This is a good bridge into what I'd like to discuss next, actually. Seeing as Jezebel is a part of your prophecy—"  
"If that is true, it's the first I'm hearing of it," Niklaus directly intrudes.  
I straighten my back as he brings me into the conversation, properly setting his utensils down. Niklaus waits for one of us to explain. I don't want to talk about it, but he'll demand it of me sooner of later. Fearing the idea of bringing that girl back into our lives, I let it be known what Alexis the Seer showed me.  
"Alexis bared some reference to Jezebel's tie to the prophecy through her visions on the night she died," I confess, trying to put the case to rest before it's open. "However, given she wants nothing to do with Niklaus or myself, we should all return the favor and leave the girl be. A war can't be started until we provoke the other party."  
And I meant it. If it was easy for her to guarantee the silence of Alexis, we could take a page from her book and cut out our weeping crocodile.  
"If you positively considered that, you would not have sent her an invitation behind my back," Klaus defensively notes.  
Lucien continues, "But you should be thankful he did. The invitation is what kept her away. For, she would not like the proposition we're about to make. The vessel she was transported on has become vacant, or at least we plan on making it so. When the time comes, we'd like you to lay claim on her artifact."  
My head shoots up when Lucien halts his proposition at the distant sound of clacking heels in the distance and slam of a door.  
Jezebel sharply turns the corner into the courtyard, looking directly at Tristan. I catch the matching eyes in the room, looking up at her like a renaissance painting.  
Lucien sighs, "Speak of the devil."  
Lucien's hand turns white upon picking up Jezebel's limp hand. She merely watches him try not to be overcome with pain as the numbingly hot sensation in his hand resides a little longer.  
"I'm not here for the fake occasion. My vessel is gone," Jezebel hisses.  
"And?" I playfully remark.  
She takes out her keychain calmly, flicking open the brightly-sheathed swiss knife it holds. She stabs it just below her heart, and I receive the pain. As she carves upward, her face stiff as a wooden board, I watch my blood stain my freshly pressed dress shirt. The feeling of severed arteries heightens.  
As she pulls it out of her chest, she hasn't shed a drop of blood. However, the neckline of her blouse is now beyond repair.  
I hustle to catch my breath and to retain my composure.  
"And I'm upset. Can you tell?" Jezebel promises.  
Klaus irritably groans, setting his utensil down loudly. "Tristan, let the girl have her toys and leave her out of the equation. This is between you and your sires."  
Jezebel switches her shark-like posterior in his direction.  
"You have made it clear you were disturbed by my presence here and that you would take it if you had to. Tristan is not the only impending source of bone dust in this room," Jezebel barks.  
"Well, if you were going to try to kill my brother, why not return the gesture?" Aurora smiles wickedly. "Come on, Tristan let me have her."  
"Nobody's killing anyone," the Mikaelson sister, Freya, says as she steps out of one of the back rooms. "It's in safe keeping."

**FREYA**

Jezebel's chest moves a little with a suppressed sarcastic sound effect.  
"Jezebel Zaragoza. I've heard a lot about you," I greet her.  
With an air of superiority, I come toward her.  
"Nothing bad, I hope" she acrimoniously retorts.  
"The child of the first werewolf alpha and a malignant sorceress, oh, there's gonna be talk," I remark.  
"I'll introduce you sometime. Speaking of, glad to see Dahlia finally ate shit. I don't know if you remember me. We kind of got into it a couple decades ago."  
"Couldn't forget. I'd never seen a monsoon that strong before. You're powerful. But not more so than an original witch."  
Jezebel smiles at me coldly.  
"I'd bet money otherwise, but my trust fund doesn't come in paper format."  
Taunting me, she sniffs and wrinkles her nose softly.  
Elijah looks between us witches while he waits for his queue of violence.  
Aurora comments, "Dinner and a show. For an American Holiday, Thanksgiving has proved its worth."  
Jezebel cuts to the point of her entry, "You've done your research, but you haven't checked your safety net. The thing you stole from me could get your family killed. Where is it?"  
"In mint condition, obviously. I happen to know Tristan was waiting for it to be here tonight; he ransacked the DuBois Farmhouse looking for it. You're stubborn, you wouldn't hide it in plain sight, so I did it for you. More for my own cause. Give us the coordinates, and you get the vessel you're looking for," I address Lucien and Tristan.  
Jezebel doesn't react; she just makes it more complicated. "You're asking the wrong people."  
She escalates the point of the entire evening. A paper flicks upward between her nimble fingers for Tristan to see.  
With a dead gaze, she says, "You shouldn't wear a blazer in eighty degrees. If you take it off, you can get pickpocketed at any given tourist hotspot."  
Panicking, Aurora stands.  
"You naughty girl," Tristan says without surprise.  
I try and take it from Jezebel when she isn't looking. She senses my hand before it even moves, holding it to her opposite side.  
"You're too late to make threats. She's scheduled to be dropped in the Atlantic tonight!" Aurora blurts.  
My heart skips a beat. Jezebel smiles mischievously as everyone suddenly turns to Aurora. Elijah's face is turning a pale pink and Klaus's neck pulsates with stalled swallows.  
"The ocean!" Klaus growls, his chair jetting out behind him.  
Aurora is taken aback, like she didn't realize what she just told us was wrong.  
She frowns, "Nik! She's perfectly fine. I'm keeping her safe! No reason my sire shouldn't be trusted in my hands."  
I am not waiting any longer. I prepare to say a spell that brings her thoughts forward, muttering a simply incantation under my breath. I raise my electrically charged hand to Aurora, but Tristan is one step ahead of me. He thinks fast, acts quick for his sister's sake. He grabs me, holding me against him with a knife to my throat.  
"Harm my sister and I'll reciprocate," Tristan sneers in my ear.  
I don't fear. I see the way Jezebel looks at Tristan, her hands reaching around her head. She breaks her own neck. Like clockwork, the twisting of four vertebrae mimics the ambience of bottle caps popping after a war is over.  
Jezebel stands tall, cracking her neck back into place, but her nose still bleeds from the dire exertion. Elijah extends his clean handkerchief to Jezebel, whose nose also bleeds a brilliant red. She doesn't take it.  
"I'll make yours bleed the old-fashioned way if you don't take me to what belongs to me," she asserts.


	5. The Ex Complex

**AURORA**

Jezebel stands on two lean legs before me, loosely holding a stick of white sage.  
Swatting it away, I cough at its bothersome smell and blink away the smoke following the path of sunset's glow coming into my eyes through the window.  
"I've had just about enough of you," I groan.  
"You and the rest of the city," responded she, dispassionately. "Unfortunately, there's not much I can do until you tell me your coordinate. Otherwise, I don't get my vessel back."  
"You would think it'd be easier if you'd left me unconscious."  
"You would. _Por supues'_...that's why you're a vampire and not a witch. You're all speculation."  
"You're not here because you're worried about your vinyl. You're here because you're worried about the Mikaelsons. Nik, to be more specific," I twitch with irritation. "Is that speculation?"  
"I told you if you had just stayed out of my way, there'd be no cause for you to care what I do," she repeats.  
"He told me everything," I tell her. "How eloquent of an actress you are, using a 'pregnant girl on the lamb' story to butter everyone up, make you likable, and then, make it impossible for them to convict you of murder. Now, I've got to tell you, I've thought about going there but I've never had the guts—"  
"I know what happened, I was actually there," Jezebel spits.  
"What's the matter? Too soon?" I chuckle.  
She steps forward, thoughtfully looking at the wall behind me and lightly sniffing to alleviate an itch. "It's funny. He told you about me, but I never heard a word about you. Let's not assume we know anything about each other."  
"On the contrary. I know enough to make you suffer," I promise, "such as the reason Tristan even wanted you here. You're alike to a plague of locusts, Jezebel. You and your Murder of Seraphi. Though you run from them like a coward, you somehow manage to never look back as they tear this city in half like the red sea. I'm perfectly suited to tell Klaus what it is you're up to."  
She leans down toward me. "You think you know him better than I do?"  
I simper confidently.  
"I'd say an entire millennium is adequate enough to earn the right."  
Tricky, she wonders, "And what day did you two meet?"  
"Oh, nice try. I'm not that naïve!" I catch onto her snooping.  
Jezebel nods lightly.  
"I'm aware of that. So, do you think if I went and asked Klaus, your timelines would match?"  
I say nothing to that. The eldest Mikaelson sister appears, looking at an epiphanied Jezebel expectantly.  
"Well?" Freya yawns.  
Jezebel's teeth rake over her lip.  
"The date the De Martels transitioned. Those are the coordinates. Tell Elijah we can let them go," she figures. "Let her go. We have what we need."  
Damn.  
"Jezebel!" I call out anxiously. "He already called them. And rest assured, if you free my sire, I will tell them everything!"  
she turns on a high heel, tattooed hand on the doorframe as she leans back to look at me.  
"Give it a try," says she. "Luckily, you're a reliable source."

**ELIJAH**

I'm standing on the overhead railings of the Abattoir when Jezebel emerges from the room where Aurora has been detained. There's a pause in her step when she notices the large "M" imprinted on a pillar nearby. Given her past exhibition of unpredictability, her thoughts take her somewhere else when the right cord is struck. That crest is a catalyst for colorful ideas.  
Tristan must finally be out of relevant information. Klaus removes himself from Tristan's spot of detainment and approaches Jezebel, unhappy to see him without a bargaining piece.  
"No such luck?" he intones as his hands lace behind his back.  
She extends to him a paper with a number written across it.  
"Aurora transitioned on November tenth," Jezebel says. "So, I'm guessing Tristan's coordinate is something along the same lines."  
I can't see my brother's façade, but I guess it to be geared toward something of appreciation for little chaotic antics such as this. I also imagine the way he used to lay his eyes on her, with a slight longing and disguised pity.  
"Not as clever as I expected from her, but all the same, poetic," Klaus remarked. "For the record, I didn't tell Freya to—"  
"Nothing permanent has happened yet. I won't browbeat you for it," Jezebel interrupts.  
"You aided Marcellus and you managed to keep my sister from an Atlantic prison. You've given us an advantage. I deem your next step will be to remind me that I owe you."  
She says, "You don't have anything that I want."  
His attention is still fixed on her as I round the corner of the railings just to see his disappointed gaze. I have to stop meddling.  
I start walking back into the room where Tristan sits unconscious and bound to one of our fine Victorian chairs. My original thoughts were to interrogate him about the cargo ship where Rebekah's body lies, but I have come up with a new round of questioning in the last five minutes.  
Tristan wakes with the scent of burning sage that crunches in Freya's grasp. His eyes open and his breath quickens; he looks horrified. He tries to speak, but he's only wriggling in his seat and humming.  
"It's a side effect of her magic. It must have triggered the venom still in his system," Freya notifies me.  
We choose to let him have his episode. Within a minute or so, he passively sits with a traumatized expression.  
"I do enjoy knowing a most merciless witch is out to get you," I smile.

**KLAUS**

It had to be brought up sometime, when we would stop being familiar strangers and start being a failed romance.  
Stepping towards her, I purr, "If there's nothing I have that you desire, then why are you lingering here in my city?"  
She folds her arms as though she prepared to hear the question a second or tenth time. I lean over one of her shoulders when she refuses to respond to my interrogating stroll around her perimeter.  
"I know for fact you swore you'd never come back to this place if it were an option. So, what other reason do you have to stay—besides me?" I tempt her to play.  
Jezebel closes her blue-vein eyelids and puts her incarnadine lips together, unimpressed. She stops my imposing closeness with a firm forearm to my chest. Her forearm rebounds back to her side after a soft push on my dress shirt.  
Jezebel states, "I can practically taste the paranoia. Trying to romance and gamble the hard feelings away in every potential threat you come across is a cheap trick."  
She's one to talk. There would be no hard feelings had there been less secrecy between us. She was scared of my kin once and it drove her dire need and success to betray us.  
Unable to restrain myself, I inhale deeply Jezebel's scent of sandalwood, my hand intimidatingly grazing the side of her olive neck to move her satin hair back. My memory serves me well that she would reject any sort of human contact with me as she takes a step away.  
"If a fifth of the population is split between cruel and compassionate, then the rest can be swayed in either direction. I'd say I have created my own workable technique under those circumstances. It has proved compatible with very simple minds such as yours to the most complex—Aurora's. But make no mistake, I haven't the heart to take either lost causes in," I mutter to her.  
Jezebel scoffs, "Swayed is another word for 'forced.' Not everyone wants to be cruel or to be compassionate. Compassion may dominate Aurora's heart right now, but what happens when it comes time to protect her sire? Or Tristan's? She doesn't want to hurt you, but she will to save herself. No one's story is any different than that."  
I'm about to rebuttal her observation when Freya bursts in, seeming apologetic and slightly agitated.  
"I can't find the sundial. It's gone. I've looked everywhere," Freya pants.  
Jezebel cranes her head back, preserving a neutral countenance. There's a moment where I think she may do something rash until the silence in the air pulls on her ear. Exposing the doom she has every intention of making me feel, she turns her gaze toward me.  
"Where's Aurora?" Soft and frozen in tone, she demands.  
Aurora. We've left her alone for too long.  
"She wouldn't have taken it, she's far too focused—"  
Jezebel doesn't wait for me to finish. She rips open the doors on the downstairs guest bedroom, allowing us to get a better look at Aurora's overturned chair and the connecting door to the dining room completely destroyed.

**ELIJAH**

"You have what you want. You found Rebekah. Just let me go so this can be over and done with," Tristan asks of me.  
Freya glances at me over her shoulder, expectant of me to give in or to have the last word.  
I shake my head at her to let her know we aren't done here. I sit in front of Tristan, leaning inward.  
"Yes, but you see, I don't. It is imperative that you confess what you know. How did you know Jezebel Zaragoza was alive?" I growl at him.  
Tristan shakes, "What!"  
"I believe you heard me."  
"She— I told you... I told you she is of value to the continuation of our sirelines! One of the biggest pieces!"  
"But that's not an answer to my question. Where did she come from? And how did you get to her?"  
"Elijah...this is the second time he's had this much venom in his system. I think he's going to die if we don't give him the antidote sooner or later," Freya says, puzzled.  
Tristan begins, "A deal was made! Aurora and I...we struck a deal with someone...a coven. We must bring Jezebel to them in exchange for a way to de-sire ourselves from you! A weapon! It would protect our sires from one another."  
He would sacrifice Lucien and Aurora's sireline for the sake of his own. Unsurprising. I imagine he has yet to hear of this exact story.  
"Who was in this coven, Tristan?" I demand.  
He goes into another violent episode via his poisoned mindset, repeatedly murmuring, "Celeste! Celeste DuB—"  
"Celeste?" Freya repeats, glancing at me for guidance.  
That's the second time I've heard her name this week in hundreds of years. The episode is over within the next few moments. Tristan's levels of pride and serenity diminish as he withers like a flower.  
"Celeste DuBois is one of the ancestors to the covens of New Orleans," I state quietly. "Allegedly."  
That's when marcellus interrupts our night of entertainment. "What's next, charades? While you guys host the world's most messed-up game night, you got bigger problems."  
He strolls into the room with a strut as proud as Niklaus's.  
I drop my exhale like a weight as I wave off Marcellus. "Freya, would you mind dealing with this situation, please?"  
"Oh, no offense to your lovely sister, but you and I need to talk. I'm here on behalf of The Strix, and I'm not leaving without Tristan," Marcel says.  
I waltz out into the hallway, dragging Marcel behind me out into the corridors of the Abattoir.  
"Elijah, look. The way I see it, you don't have a choice," he begins.  
I remark, "Is that so?"  
Marcel pauses. "How long before The Strix decide to come get their guy? And if they destroy half the quarter in the process..."  
"I can handle the Strix," Briskly, I rejoin.  
He pushes, "Oh, you can't even handle Tristan. He's caught in some seizure loop that girl put him in and the only thing that you can get out of him is...a bunch of words that tell you nothing about what's happening. The guy has been around for a millennium. He can withstand all your vampire mind games, and if you end up killing him, we lose Rebekah for good."  
"So what are you suggesting here, Marcel, I simply hand over this wretched fiend and stand idly by as you set him free?"  
"If I take Tristan, make it look like I busted him out, I get in tighter with him and The Strix. I can find out whatever you want me to and keep them from declaring war on the quarter if you trust me."  
I step past him, overlapping, "I will not release that filth!"  
Darkness overcomes me for more than two minutes, however, my eyes welcome nightfall when I wake up. I am stiff from the floor. I feel my forced lungs sucking in air like a vacuum. I am dehydrated, enduring the slow pressure and burn of oxygen on my stab wound. Jezebel is crouching beside me expectantly. She's holding a stake in her left hand. My gaze drifts to the empty chair where Tristan once sat and Freya barely waking up across the room on the carpet.  
I remember Marcel's quick attack, his quick rescue of Tristan and his quiet word of returning for me. He didn't use a dagger or white oak stake, thankfully. Klaus appears from behind Jezebel, who smiles down at me violently.  
Jezebel greets me, "Change in plans?"

**MARCEL**

"You have proven to be quite helpful Marcel. You have my gratitude," Tristan tells me.  
"I wouldn't thank me yet... You're sure taking a lot of hits from this Seraph girl," I reply.  
No one says anything, Aya grabbing Tristan's coat as he carefully stands up.  
"We should go. Marcel, we'll be in touch," Aya says brusquely.  
I feel a surge of frustration fall over me. I've felt it every time the Strix has reached out to me for a favor. It's been limited, but to feel the desire to lash out this early, it's incredible.  
"Wait, hold up. So that's it?" I scoff. "You come into my house, threaten me, and ask me to declare war on the most dangerous vampires in the world. Which doesn't make sense to me! It seems like Jezebel is your biggest problem!"  
Tristan rolls up his sleeves, coming back toward me. "I see. So you expected something more."  
I continue to rant, "Damn right. You talk a lot about my loyalty to the Strix, what about vice versa! I'm a marked man."  
"I assure you, we will be initiating good on—"  
"No. None of that," I interrupt Aya. "You need me on your side. But if it's a friend you need, I'm not gonna be there next time."  
Aya is about to lunge at me, the immediate hunger in her eyes when Tristan grabs her arm.  
"You have earned something, indeed, Marcel. You are correct. Come with us," He says.  
He nods his head toward my front door, and Aya is left with her foot in her mouth. She's unsure about that decision. Gleeful to see it, I grant her a big smile when I pass her by.

**KLAUS**

Jezebel ignores the cup of scotch I set in front of her.  
She swears, "I won't use detail. If Aurora destroys it, I'm going to die."  
Her eyes dart from Elijah's to mine. I stand between the couches in front of our coffee table while I bring my morning drink to my lips. Elijah watches our guest in confusion for a brief moment of time.  
"You described the object vaguely, claiming it was us 'handing over your life to the Strix'. How do you mean?" Elijah ponders.  
"My spirit is separated from my human body. It's been that way since I passed," she summarizes, eyes wandering towards Elijah. "I keep a physical presence on this plane even if I'm gone because of it. If this one gets destroyed, I can't makea new one. My human body is what holds the majority of my powers. Thing is that I don't know what happened it—it's a part of the reason I stayed when Marcel let me go. Someone needs to take the vessel from Aurora before she goes through another mood swing and snaps it in half," Jezebel explains.  
"If you can't make a new one, who put you on the sundial?" Elijah asks.  
"Celeste had an object called the Serratura that she kept me alive on before I met you. I guess there was some damage done to my body I don't remember that she was willing to fix for me." When a second instance came where someone wanted me dead, I decided to contact a descendant of Celeste," Jezebel replies.  
"Vincent," Klaus narrows his eyes.  
Elijah then begins for her, "And normally, you would go and retrieve this device yourself, but...?" Elijah begins for her.  
"The vessel is cloaked," she tells him with a hint of accusation. "Every second I'm not in possession of it gives everyone else the ability to use it against me. I'm not so stupid I'd leave it unprotected. Especially not against you."  
There is a rising hostility between Jezebel and Elijah, in which I am not entirely present to them. Here, I thought they were more or less simple acquaintances.  
"Well, if you are in need of a rescue, there is a price to pay, of course. You'll have to play the role of our snake in the grass, pardon the innuendo," Elijah tells her.  
She rolls her eyes in disenchantment. It brings a smug smile to my face.  
Jezebel dreads asking, "What for?"  
"I want you to tell us about the Murder of Seraphi," Elijah asks of her.  
Her brows pull away from each other and her shoulders drop to a frozen position.  
"...I told you once. Don't tell me you haven't put the pieces together," she intones.  
My brother's slow blink communicates his doubt.  
"You might as well hold back on the mystery, Love. While it is amusing to watch Tristan go through a seizure every time we ask, it's essential to our well-being and possibly your own. Besides, if it is as _blasé_ a topic you make it seem, why would you spell Tristan's trap shut?" I corner her.  
"Lucien Castle's Seer showed us an overbearing vision of the end of the Mikaelson line. One to fall by family, one by friend, and one by foe. Though, it's unclear if you're the friend or the foe. Or if the Murder, as it's been called, is planning to make it more transparent," I explain to her.  
She takes a moment to process.  
"Think of it like guardian angels. They see everything you do, and they're in charge of what happens next. The only reason you still exist is because I do. And if I don't exist, that means you stand no chance."  
"Where are we going with this apocalyptic metaphor, exactly?"  
"There's something I never got the chance to tell you before I was killed—"  
My chest pounds like a drum when I hear the loud crack of stone. Jezebel's clutching her face, and when she looks at her hand, there's a fresh smear of black powder. Of all the consequences of bane that I've seen cross the faces and minds of my family's adversaries, I'd never seen anything like this. Like a china doll dropped by its owner, her dusty rose cheek grows a thin divide from her temple to the edge of her nose that could be drawn by pen to imitate the same width. Her eyes are wide in consternation, fingertip. I see the dumbfounded gaze in Elijah's eyes as ash slowly trickle from the mystical injury. Darkness takes over the shine of her eyes.  
She notes briefly, "...Forget it. You're wasting my time. I have to find Aurora."


	6. Bride & Genesis

POVs marked with an * include triggers some audiences will not agree with/be able to read through. If you cannot finish, just go ahead and skip to the next chapter.

**JEZEBEL**

_October 16th_

"_Jimson hierba?_" The shop woman repeated.  
I picked at the lace of my fingerless gloves on top of the scratched up counter, nodding.  
"_Sí, cuatros tallos_," I sounded more confident than I looked.  
"_¿Por qué?_" She conspicuously asked. "_¿Por quién?_"  
"_Por mí_," I flatly replied, eyes on the cyan ceiling and walls. "_No me preguntes. Por favor._"  
She began to browse the shelf behind her, lined with cracked crates and glossy jars, and plants accurately lined up with prisms near the windows escorting more light into their petals and leaves.  
"..._¿Es un agente paralizante?_" I dared to clarify.  
She slowly took her hands out of a high-placed crate, looking me up and down as if i were a beggar child. "_Más por humanos, sí_."  
"_¿Qué de brujas?_" I sighed.  
She nodded with a very tiny twitch of a smile on the left corner of her red apple mouth. "_¿Crees que puedes hacerles cualquier cosa que no puedan deshacer?_"  
"_Ya veremos_," I shrugged.  
I pulled a decent-sized roll of money from my sleeve and set it in front of her expectantly.  
"We don't take currency," she notified while eyeing me between my brows.  
She stared and stared until I caught on.  
"..._Quieres comercio_," I guessed, placing a hand on my hip.  
"_No lo dije. ¿Pero...a ver. ¿Qué podrías ofrecer?_" She acted.  
Challenging her gaze, I leaned forward and smiled mockingly. "_Lo que quieras. Soy un ángel. Desde arriba, más o menos_."  
"_Palabras muy peligrosa_." She nodded at me and placed a diligently curved blade in front of me, a mosaic dragon on its grip. "Blood is valuable witch trade. Especially the blood of mixed breeds. A full pint. Slice horizontally, it's easier to stitch up."  
A burly hand intervened between us and stabbed the knife into the counter on the shop witch's side of bargain.  
"That won't be necessary," gleamed Klaus, putting a hand on my shoulder. "Unless, you're looking for a loss in income which I can assure you, you'll give what you can to our newcomer and leave it at that."  
The witch looked between me and him, connecting us in imaginary or realistic ways in her head. She shut her mouth, turning away and looking at one dark-red tinted jar amongst all the other transparent containers. She didn't open it, or show us anything to do with it. It was there on the counter for taking.  
She noted, "Water hemlock and castor bean will react to the natural toxins in any loose leaf tea; it should turn it red, like hibiscus sap. Grind these down until the liquid within is dried up. Sit it out for a while and then, keep grinding into a powder."  
Her eyes maneuvered to the satisfied man beside me.  
"And what did I say to you about coming in here again?"  
"I'm already gone, as far as you're concerned. Get back to work," Klaus rode on her cynicism.  
Disappearing into the back rooms of the shop, I turned to him in the quiet of the dusty shop. "What are you doing?"  
"Rescuing you from making a rather idiotic mistake, I'd say. The witches have a well-spread out chain of bloodletting around the city. Whatever they do with your essence has a good chance of you reaping the result," he grabbed my wrist and tapped it condescendingly.  
Taking it away, I waved him away from my personal space and picked up the jar.  
"So you can see I'm desperate," I said, walking past him to the exit. "What are you doing here, I heard you can't come into this part of the city?"  
Klaus hummed in affirmation, his shadow clinging to my back and his body temperature, too. "And who told you the incompetent doctor's aid who escorted you from the outskirts?"  
I got a lot of attention from the commuters who lived in the same rural area as myself. That particular day a married man thought to show me to the place I needed to go.  
"You were following me," I said, making a joke of it. "So, what say you about my elderly escort? Do you think he likes me?"  
Klaus cocked his head a bit, moving himself to my right side to keep in time with my stepping. "He undoubtedly liked the back of your dress."  
I released an amused sigh through my nose and rolling my eyes.  
He proceeded to answer my question, "The witches have put in place a patent set of rules; none have been negotiated thus far, so why abide by them? This is still my territory."  
Adjusting the slope in my dress shoulder, I put the jar away in the cloth bag I brought with me. "You make it appear as though we're in the wilderness."  
"You'll come to adjust the animalistic manners of this place eventually. We'll see how ridiculous it sounds by then."  
I look up at him and his smug expression.  
"I believe you," I regressed my response.  
Some places adopt a spirit with more of a psyche than any one of its inhabitants. I knew the second I crossed over its borderline, New Orleans was no different.  
"So, then you're prepared for this next bit," he developed on his thesis. "My brother's found a woman he'd like to ordain into our family via one of our famous parties come this weekend. Seeing as I'll be the odd man out for dancing alone, I'm in need of company."  
I crossed my arms, looking about the havoc in the street behind us aloofly.  
"What if the incompetent doctor's aid has already held me to such plans?" I caustically rumored.  
Klaus chortled, playing along with a foolish nod as he folded his hands behind his waistcoat. "I don't consider his wife to be a majorly open woman; not enough to let him break matrimonial code and visit a ball he wasn't invited to with a younger woman."  
Lips sucked in, I stopped on the end of our busy road and looked towards the trees in the distance as I thought aloud, "If it's your brother's party, shouldn't he be the one extending me an invitation?"  
Running a hand over his cravat, he ran with my questions as charismatically he could. "Chaperone or not, I am still the alpha around here, love. All my invitations are valid, whether he likes it or not."  
I laughed, much to his visibly confused agitation.  
He scrutinized, "Do I amuse you?"  
I answered him with a parted smile, "I will go with you. But I hope I am not going with the alpha. He seems...like a stale broad."  
His firm frown swiftly changed into a grin as we parted ways.  
I lazily gestured my bag at him as I left him there, a horse and carriage passing between us. "Thank you for your intervention."

_October 17th_

The water hemlock generates a smell a lot like nettle when it is mixed into the steeped drink I'd prepared when Celeste barged in that morning. I set the teapot irritably in front of her, knowing better than to offer it to her or show her kindness. It was bad enough I was trying to kick her when she was nowhere near being down.  
"You could sit down and listen to me," Celeste windlessly suggested from the desolate little dining table across the room.  
"Or I could stand far away and listen as you try to explain to me why you are getting married to a Mikaelson! It's ridiculous and you know it!" I slammed the damp kitchen rag in my hands down onto the counter through the doorway where I could see her. "What is he for?"  
"How do you mean?" she intoned, tipping the brown clay teapot over to release a few ounces of tea into her cup.  
"I mean, what goal does he achieve if I'm all you need?" I clarified, aggravated.  
Suspiring in the hostile spirit of the room, she planted her long hands into the top of the heavy table and rose from her seat to meet me. "I have a duty to the murder. It doesn't mean I've looked right past the world and what it has to offer. I get to pick the people I want to save and...Elijah loves me. Why wouldn't he need me?"  
I still remember the way she made it sound, more one-sided than not. It somehow made Celeste seem more human in little ways; she loved to be loved but didn't know how to give it.  
I spat, "You make it sound like I have a choice when you've given me none."  
"Do you really believe that?" she tripped over my victimhood. "Then, what's this?"  
Celeste flashes me the invitation that had come to my door that morning, inscribed with Klaus's perfectionist handwriting. "As it seems, you've been added to my list of guests at the engagement party tomorrow. How could that be? Since when does the hybrid reach out to a girl he doesn't know? Let alone, a witch."  
I never said that and Celeste never asked, but there was no point in arguing with someone older and stronger. I pulled it out of her hand, only hoping I could have left her a paper cut and tucked it into the pocket at the top of my pale yellow skirt.  
"I'm surprised you didn't somehow orchestrate this to keep an eye on me. It's your party, no? You're the one about to make a happy, powerful man miserable?" I hoisted my brows at her.  
"Oh, you would think," she denigrated, nodding her head and wide in the eyes, "yet you're wrong. The heinous manchild, the filthy hybrid trying to get a taste of your helpless bones has motives of his own. You'd dare put the Murder's messiah at risk?"  
My hands laid into the flat fabrics of my skirt between my knees on the West-facing redwood table chair as I lurched forward with irritation.  
"Morirás sin importar lo que haga. Chingada cobarde," I insulted her under my breath.  
Like the whip of a horse's tail, her hand fled across my face and drew a fine line across my cheek. I held onto the squealing wound, already dripping and puffy from provocation.  
Celeste takes a step back, looking at me in a slightly relieved fashion to have acted on something she had held back on for a long time. "_Es un riesgo honorario que tomaremos. No olvide que tú es la que muere de cualquier manera. Trata de no estar muy orgullosa. _You'll go and you'll tell him not to trouble you anymore. You're a dullard to think Klaus Mikaelson can do anything to help you and you will do well to help them understand this."  
She continued to strut out the foyer door without ever having taken a drink of the poison.  
I threw the invitation from my pocket past me onto the armchair in the open den behind me, running a hand through my hair, distressed.  
My eyes fell over the sharp fabric edge peeking out from underneath the elongated loveseat that was coming to be void of stuffing like I was of ideas. Collecting myself, I pulled the second half of Klaus's delivered invitation out from hiding, hesitantly opening the lid to have another look.  
The dress had a slim skirt, purposely staggering its blood orange fringes that fell gracefully away from the black ribbon around the high waistline. The back was cut deeper than the front, the sheer satin ruffles at the sleeveless shoulders following its V-formation to come together at my middle back.  
Putting my hair behind my ear, I left it sitting on the floor and went to throw out the castor-hemlock tea. Stalled in a crouch, my mind momentarily fuzzed over like a days-old fruit when I found myself sitting next to a bright red floor that was stealthily growing out of a crevice between two loose floorboards keeping me above the dirt foundation of the house. Its cone shape birthed a second flower right off its tongue. And another and another, until it was almost too heavy to stand upright on a thick stem. I hovered my face over it, a droplet of blood landing on the externally bred leaf attached to the lower part of the stem. Soon enough, that leaf was its own branch, and the blood from my fist coating the stem grew more and more stems.  
I pulled the sapling of red flowers out of the floorboards before it could make them expand, heading for the kitchen's back exit.  
I dug a hole in the dirt at the side of the house quickly and with my bare hands, backing up to watch the sapling grow into a meager, blood red ceibo tree.

**REBEKAH**

_October 18th_

The idea of an engagement party reflected as one that could be the best time for building bridges instead of burning them. Planning it wasn't easy, though, this family's forte lies in throwing parties even a Gatsby couldn't imagine. Gathering a crowd, presenting to them the best wines and entertainment, a few family squabbles and scandals, and the night would be over before it had begun. Living it somehow became the most difficult part. I realized I was celebrating the fact I'd be giving one of my brothers away to someone outside this family. I'd be the only one left to wrangle Niklaus, who hadn't listened to a thing I'd said since we were children. I hold onto the notion, still, that if I had not wasted my time and told Niklaus I was planning to turn Emil, perhaps we would have been where Elijah was then; I had the notion that a lot of things would have been alright if I had just said something beforehand.  
For the first hour, I sat in sticky denial that I would ever walk out of this city holding the love of my life's hand without Nik detaching it from his body.  
And then, I saw the face of this vision swimming in the obscurity of his own livid drunkness. Happily, he sung a vulgar song about the bride-to-be and her "poor son of a bitch" with the friends I made clear were meant to deny their pitiful invitatons. Emil nearly toppled over the stone mosaic table I had handcrafted and imported from Tuscany last year, but he caught his footing and made it to the wall beside the doorway I stood in with a disgusted look on my face.  
"There you are," chirped Emil, coming to kiss me with the horrid scent of vomit and alcohol on his breath. "Oh, I've missed you."  
Putting a hand between us for distance, I sighed hopelessly. "Emil, the party started but an hour ago. How in the hell are you this far gone?"  
He laughed obnoxiously and then did his best to compose himself after another sip. "Oh, come now. You should join me! It's a special occasion, you know, for the—! Pretty lass on the street corner..."  
They broke into song all over again, horrifically misremembering themselves in the presence of a lady.  
With Emil's back turned, I take the chance to remove the whiskey-filled glass from his hand and throw it narrowly past his head, hitting the most tone-deaf of his friends and knocking him unconscious.  
"If you aren't Emil, I'm going to ask you go and enjoy the rest of the party without him. We need a moment," politely, I announce to the remainder of the group.  
They filed out like dogs called to lunch, Emil leaning on our green Persian sofa chairs.  
"What's wrong with you?" he mumbled in vexation.  
I scolded, "Why would you do this? In my brothers' house of all places. Do you even want a chance for us to make it to year's end or not?"  
"That's odd, I don't remember you complaining this much about it last night," he moaned excitably, coming towards me again.  
His head awkwardly falls into the crook of my neck, arm around me not for affection but for physical support.  
"A party with three hundred guests is different. Get off me!" I hissed.  
Limbo-ing away from me, he leaned back against the chair once more.  
"You worry far too much, love...I am the next governor, an honest man. And I am going to help them make New Orl—"  
"And they can replace you in a second's notice. You promised me...you were going to try harder than this. You promised," I bemoaned.  
"I try hard!" he had an outburst. "I try hard to put up with your expectations, your rules, your lewd- Louis- Ludicrous family laws and what do I get? Horse ssshh—"  
He coughed hard and devilishly as if he might regurgitate again.  
Rules. All I had wished was that he be able to show a humble face in the presence of my family, to show a sober face, a happy face, a poker face— ...Enough faces to fool even me.  
I had nothing more to say to him that night. I shut those parlor doors and let him grovel, hoping he wakes up in a pile of his own guts.  
I almost walked into a familiar face as I turned. Surprise, surprise. It was the girl from the docks.  
"I beg your pardon, but didn't I leave you to die a few days ago?"  
Looking me over in disinterest, she answered me, "In theory."  
"You know you're a lot less threatening when you aren't using the words 'white oak' and 'bullets'," caustically, I said.  
She honeyed her voice and pitifully furrowed her brows. "I sincerely apologize that ambushing me was such a traumatic experience for you. You must hardly be able to leave your home without fretting someone will point an empty rifle at you."  
She came off right away as a slippery one, her only rough edge being that tongue of hers. The expensive dress was a giveaway, just as well. She had to be the girl Nik thought he was discreetly beckoning into his lain trap.  
"Estimating by that careless pout, you're the girl my brother invited," I guessed aloud. "I thought he was done with courting his meals, but I chance there's a relapse for every basis under the sun."  
"What my sister means to say is you look ravishing and she's happy to be hosting us tonight." Klaus put a hand on her lower back as he approached, warning me with the tinge of enthusiasm in his voice to not so much as look at the veins in her neck going forth.  
I dipped my head at her politely, though, she didn't do the same for me.  
"Ceibo root," she interrupted my greeting, "If it gets into a vampire's system it can cause clotting and biochemical burns. You would have had an aneurysm at most if you swallowed, but if you had completely gone for it, your brain would stop working for days and your brother would be feeding you blood through a funnel to keep you alive."  
The explanation she was giving for the burning sensation in my throat that night seemed almost harmless in the gorgeous way she spoke it, her pronunciation tempted by her Spanish fluency.  
There were oceans more shallow than her smile. "Oh. My name is Jezebel. If you were interested."  
My eyes went to my brother's. Ceibo root. Vampire Comatose. Jezebel. Of course, the first three things I learned about this girl screamed of a nightmare. Klaus simpered in response to my face, as if he was damn proud of his pick of the city's litter.  
"Run along. I would go check on your junior governor. I hear he's lauded enough by a Merlot these days, he's lapping it out of a bowl," Klaus goaded me, gesturing with his hand to leave him alone with his young suitor.

**JEZEBEL**

I'd got through the first minute of him leading me through our first dance with complete reserve. In all fairness, I thought he might have been the kind to just keep talking or to hardly notice if I wasn't listening. He seemed to be genuinely unperturbed with just watching me while I stared at Celeste. I was trying to guess the words that were coming out of her mouth to two very familiar looking women; I could only guess they were the ones who had given me an unwelcome pelvic exam a few days ago. I'm sure based on what Celeste has shared with me thus far that the Seraphi's number was smaller in this house than in others because it was bad enough the coven Celeste openly bonded with was already occupying half the room. Or did the New Orleans coven already realize that she was delegating with this separate cultish group of women disciples? All plotting a hell of a demise for them.  
Celeste couldn't have loved Elijah; or maybe she did and she believed somehow she could keep him exempt from whatever came next. I was clear on the position we were all playing, but why did it have to involve him?  
"You're distracted," Klaus claimed.  
I snap out of my train of thoughts, looking at him and then losing sight of the lady of the evening.  
"I'm sorry if I was too impertinent earlier. I thought for future reference, she should know I'm a forward thinker," I excused, readjusting my slipping hand on his shoulder and warmer palm.  
"I can't say she didn't deserve to have her feathers ruffled a little. And no better person to do it, really. Exactly how many vampires did you intend to clash with on this journey of yours?" Klaus talked above the orchestral music.  
Truthfully, I replied, "I didn't. I've never met one until now."  
He raised his brows with intrigue. "And?"  
Disenchanted, I tilted my head with and furrowed my brows. A short-lived exhale of a laugh escaped me when I realized he was expecting some fantastic reaction story from me.  
"And one bit me, so I would say the thrill is fleeting and I'm not overly snowed," I commented.  
The tempo slowed, and so did the rest of the dancefloor.  
"To be expected from one of the most fearless girl to walk these streets."  
That seemed to be a common mistake people had made with me. Fearless was easy to mistake for pissed off. And even if he did mean "fearless", it most likely was to one of the compliments he'd tried on other women before.  
I'd seen the way he looked at me when he first approached me. His eyes made a sharp "W" trail over my face like the pattern of the beauty marks that stood apart from the warm beige and brown in my complexion. He followed them down to the few on my neck, on my chest and arms without bending his head once.  
His intentions were clear the second he took the lead, and I was more or less clueless of how to let him down gently. It wasn't something I'd had to deal with before. I didn't want to make too much conversation with him. I just had to thank him and disappear for eight months into the humid darkness of my stolen property.  
I started it off, "The dress— You didn't have to do that. I could have—"  
"You didn't sound entirely enthused the prior time I'd asked," he concluded.  
I shook my head gently, despite my intentions to put it straight that I'd be returning it to him tomorrow.  
"No, I wasn't," I told him. "I'm not the biggest fanatic of Celeste DuBois. We have somewhat of a history, apparently."  
I counted every time I'd looked away from him by the number of times he delicately pushed in my middle back so we could be closer.  
"Apparently," Klaus repeated, curious.  
We were getting off track again. I didn't want to explain a two-year gap in my memory, only because it ended with the extremely vivid image of waking up to hundreds of witches waiting for me to step outside my realm of safety and put the immaculate conception inside me. I kept it brief.  
"My memory isn't the best it could be; not in comparison to other people. Her name has only been mentioned to me once before in the case she was one of my mother's friends," I vaguely replied.  
Celeste and Elijah introverted themselves from everyone else up on the second level overlooking their large celebration hall. At first glance, it did feel as though Celeste loved Elijah. I don't think I'd ever seen the man laugh as much, smile as much, or for the matter, forget there were hundreds of strangers in his home. Doubtfully, I slid my gaze away as she lovingly clung to his arm and whispered something in his ear.  
"And should I gain reason to fret?" Klaus wondered.  
I sucked in my lip at first and let out my honest voice on an exhale. "Aren't you already? It's so hard, seeing your brother become vulnerable to new people. You want to shield him, but—"  
"You risk their resentment of you," he finishes my sentence for me, bowing his head in understanding. "You have siblings."  
"Three adult brothers. _Cada uno es más tonto que el anterior, por supues'_... And more hopeful than I ever was. My only ambition was what I had."  
The way he smiled at me told me he understood, even if only a single word.  
"And has that changed?"  
Lau, the oldest, wanted to take over the pack; he wanted the legacy more than any of us did. Marco wanted to be writer... Rejected enough times, he turned to the drink; another legacy in need of fulfillment. Matías, youngest, had been gone for some years when he became a devoted revolutionary. It seemed like all ambition did was waste us. So what will happen if my only ambition is to live? To figure out why ambition is so cruel?  
"More or less," I mechanically answer.  
_Romperlo. Ahora es el tiempo._  
"I'm saying I can comprehend what this feels like, but the whole point of getting to be a guest is to take advantage. It's a party, one where you can still enjoy your brother's company now. Doesn't that sound better than dwelling on the conditions?" I was practically begging him to strand me so I wouldn't have to cut him out cold.  
That'd always been a problem of mine. As much as I'd like to play the bitch, altruism controlled me like night and day. Mierda.  
He suggested, "I think it'd be ridiculous of me to abandon my escort, especially after less than two hours. We are still building that bridge, aren't we?"  
He beamed his winning grin at me, the framing rose color of lips and shadowy green of his eyes all entertaining me with the thought of it only being for me.  
"You're not going to make me carry you to your home again, are you?" I teased.  
His hand had now traveled a clear three inches down towards my lower back.  
Klaus purred, "I'm behaving myself so far, aren't I?"  
For a moment, I forgot that we had stopped moving and that the morendo in the music was already upon us. The guests go above and beyond in demands for an encore just as I'm noticing the cold material that grazes off my palm with Klaus's hand. He's wearing a ring that is close in detail to the one I took off the vampire boy I'd killed.  
"Did you ever find out who that ring belonged to? The one the Millers found?" I hinted.  
He caught my bouncing glance on and off the ring and his face.  
I followed him off to the side of the room, underneath the grand stairway of the second level.  
He illustrated, "There were four of us in total once. It's one of the rings made to share between us brothers."  
My heart jumped so high, it could have flown over a fieldstone.  
Continued Klaus, "I can't say I'm astounded he took it off. Kol always was the least reliable, regardless, he was the only one who would never say no to helping me paint the town red. I must've been fooled to think we'd reached a good place."  
When my thudding heartbeat came down from a soaring 170 beats per minute, it slid all the way back down into my throat and then ball-dropped into my stomach.  
"Your brother," I repeated quiescently. "He was your brother."  
Suddenly, I couldn't remember what I had to tell him anymore. I could only see the boy's face. He had the same round eyes, matching waves of shoulder-length hair; his voice was only a tinge higher than Klaus's, too.  
I had never thought I'd be killing someone's brother. I was just afraid for myself, for what I saw when the boy, Kol, touched me.  
Feeling ill again, I kenned that I had nothing left to discharge since that morning.  
Had I held back, though, Kol would have put me in danger. Right?  
"But to hell with nasty sibling behaviors. We should act on your advice, and just enjoy the night," he evaded the subject.  
Mechanically, I took the offered glass of wine from Klaus's hand and stared at its dark red color scheme stiffly.  
"Did you ever think it was him, not you?" I couldn't help but try to find some justification for what I was feeling.  
Maybe I was right, doing what I did. I could get Klaus to remember all the horrible things that had transpired between him and Kol and then he wouldn't feel so harmed by his absence. I could do that, but by then, I'd practically be Celeste.  
He continued, "An identity crisis suggests he has the time and space to relax on a riverbank in the French Riviera and contemplate if today is the day he shifts his eating habits to animal blood only. And if you knew the half of it, you'd understand the sheer paranoia a lost ring could bring to this household."  
An onlooking Celeste on the dancefloor watched me carefully with my noxious glass in hand. To that, I took the entire thing down my tense throat in one fluent motion. Klaus himself watched with the full intent to goad me for it. "Now who's carrying who back home tonight?"  
I kept on the subject. "Did Celeste know Kol?"  
"I tend to think Elijah would be glad I'm here and Kol isn't. The only person who loathed her more than me was him."  
"Why is that?"  
His tone was more careless than before in regards to his missing brother. "Some bloodless trial regarding a tyrant and his heir. Without any doubt, Celeste had something to do with the antagonistic number of heretics on his back. He must have gotten over it, found a new damsel to bother with his tricks."  
_O tal vez ella esté aquí, preguntándose si enterró a un amigo y no a un enemigo._  
The sound of glass ringing in repeated patterns gathers everyone's attention except mine.  
"I'd like to thank you all for coming to this glorious event that I thought was beyond my reach," Elijah's voice rejoiced from our far right side.  
I watched Celeste taking his hand like a warm, submissive wife.  
"Ideally, our brother Kol would have been here to complete the wedding party, but he remains abroad for the time being. Nonetheless, my lovely sister Rebekah and ever so...enduring brother, Niklaus, do complete my content that my family is present to witness my marriage to the love of my life," Elijah toasted, eyes descending upon Klaus and I. "I understand some of you have expressed your concerns on Celeste's behalf. I'm hoping you will see an opportunity, as I have, for you to give my family your pa—"  
When I peered over at Klaus, an engaged twitch of mischief defined his body language.  
"Cheers!" Interrupted Klaus, raising his glass.  
Every guest in the room turned their head to him as he came forward on one velvet-booted foot.  
He called out, "Not only to the happy couple, but to all of you. Of all the wedding parties happening in the coming month, you chose to be at the least-anticipated and the most unlikely to succeed."  
"Niklaus, that will do," managed Elijah.  
"Oh, noiselessly trying to wrangle me, are you? I'd save the demands for your wife, eh, brother?"  
Elijah wouldn't let him turn this into a melodrama. He reached to make it appear as a gag, instead. "Please, pardon him, he's a fanatic of the merlot we've chosen for tonight."  
"Actually. I'm quite sober! Which means I'm thinking straight, thinking ahead of morning's consequences. Are you?" chirped Niklaus.  
Celeste was visibly seething. Elijah's hand was so tightly wrapped in hers it was whiter than a burning star. I don't believe she'd blinked the entire time.  
Somehow, Elijah was able to wriggle himself free, fixing his handsome red coat of velvet and silken purple embroideries around the buttons. He came a few steps down from the extended open hallway on the second story, his guests watching him in apprehension.  
Klaus met his brother at approximately the center of the room, Elijah scooping up his neck and putting his lips next to Klaus's filtered ear.  
Merrily, he mumbled, "There are three daggers in this room, Niklaus. Seeing as I'm the one who prepared them for such confrontation, I'll be able to get to one long before yourself. What will it be? Will you go quietly into the long night ahead of us, or will you allow me to cut it short for you?"  
Rustled Klaus, "And that would take care of me. But what will you do when I'm the only one left to tear the one out of your back when things go south?"  
Celeste lifted her reaction, ironing out the wrinkles in her forehead and the fixed purse of her lips to reflect a more jovial woman that everyone except me could recognize. "Let him be. Finish your toast, Darling."  
Klaus pushed past Elijah, finishing off his drink and setting it on top of the piano where a stiff musician sat posing as if he were veiled from sight.  
"Yes! Please finish! Let's see if I can 'endure' it," Klaus spat. "I wish you both the best. Celeste, remember!"  
Celeste regarded his call to her, tilting her head down at him slowly and waiting for him to finish.  
He warned her, "When you're prepared to die for him, well, that's what my little engagement gift was for."

**KLAUS**

_October 19th_

The paintbrush exerted a blunt force to the easel that dripped a crisp warm palette all over my chaotically stained floors. I remember painting the same tide five times before it fell in line and looked separate from the others. Getting a watery background to look ablaze was the most difficult part. I was saving it for last.  
I couldn't find a way to make a graceful exit; I'm not particularly known for such advanced techniques. Elijah knew well what my sentiments were about having to play the supportive brother in all this; still, he had to provoke me. I invited Jezebel for the purpose of distracting me from it, but perhaps, it only made me think harder about the future. She was in a position where being alone wasn't a choice she made; it was one made for her. By me, if not first by her family. It was a position I was digging for myself like a grave the tighter I held onto Elijah and Rebekah, and even Kol.  
It wasn't that I merely required her isolation to justify my own. Invisible to the human eye, Jezebel had placed before me a challenge to kill her with the same amount of kindness as she had dared shown me. Not just a challenge. It was a lure away from this alpha male authority I had over every soul in town. It worked.  
Because now, I was wrapped up in the thought of her. Her wit, her bittersweetness, the simple squeezes of her hand on my shoulder, her smell, the subtle ways she'd laughed at me or said my name. It startled the core of me that I might have just abandoned a chance to take it all for myself by leaving her out there without notice.  
The door swinging open with the gray rub of noise, I heard soft feet sauntering across the floorboards behind me. My sister, I reckoned, had come to scold me in the spirit of the foolish bruises I left on the hour of our brother's party.  
"She's a wreck. I heard her in the study," Jezebel's voice charged me with astonishment.  
My blister-inducing paintbrush clicked once interfacing with the spilled palette next to me on the dresser.  
She closed the door behind her to keep my privacy alive. "Rebekah told me where you might be; I just wanted to give you my thanks."  
"For?" I questioned.  
Sitting down on the armchair behind me and my bitter-scented canvas, she looked up at me with a touch of contentment. "I've had a poor week. I've felt lost and when I feel lost, I want to topple over right away. You gave me a few reasons not to."  
I shared in the contagious smile she tried to fight. As if it would cancel out the hectic mischief she wished upon Celeste, she delayed to say, "And I got to talk to someone other than the Millers. Or a wall."  
Wiping my hands of colorful oil, I held her glance.  
"If pandemonium bleeds you of a lackluster existence, you best stick around. It's all these walls know," I marked.  
The distracting gleam from the fresh coating and thick layers of my unfinished piece caught her attention.  
"You're an artist?" she stood and muttered, coming closer to my work expanse.  
"Only in my worst moments," I bragged.  
Her lips parted and her brows relaxed themselves, her arms uncrossing themselves the longer she stood next to me in a silence I couldn't distinguish to be of awe or disappointment.  
"I never liked learning with acrylics. It was too hard. Too many rules," she found. "You should consider yourself lucky to have a steady hand. Landscape requires a bit more patience than portrait or surrealism."  
She was saturated in appetite when she talked about it, the heavy apricot color in her cheek slowly traveling into her eyes the longer she looked at it. I never omitted to remember how supportive she would end up being of me, especially when I disrespected my own abilities.  
"You know your techniques," charmed, I simpered.  
Her open eyes and forward tilt in her back returned to their standard positions of neutrality the longer she considered my hypothesis.  
"Liberal Arts was a novice's requirement before I could enroll in university in Garrotxa," she recovered from a burst of enthusiasm. "It wasn't my most significant strength; I couldn't complete it, but it was one of my favorite things to study."  
"What stopped you?"  
Her novel-dense lips groped for an answer, but all I found was a white lie.  
"I changed my mind. That's all," Jezebel settled. "What does it stand for? The painting? Or is that too vague a question?"  
The moonlight casts the shadow of her lashes on her cheeks, the independent amber color of her eye caught in its fluorescent paleness. The glow of it could have been painted with the same brown and yellow tones I'd painted the flames with.  
"What's your opinion?"  
"If water could catch fire, nothing would be left to put it out. If we can't control it, what can you do other than watch everything else burn with it?"  
"The technique is called a figurative. The artist paints it, but the meaning isn't one that he makes. You did it yourself. You should be able to give yourself credit for that."  
"You just made me afraid of being wrong and then tell me it has no meaning. I'm surprised blood didn't come out of my ears," she playfully scolded me. "To hell with you."  
I turned my chest as it vibrated with laughter in her direction as she rounded her step around me and my painting. I followed the dim lighting that bounced off her exposed shoulders and ribbed structure of the two braids that lost their way down the thicket of curls on her back.  
"Perhaps, I'll just rob you of credit for your analysis," I proposed. "Or maybe I'll earn you the opportunity to get me back. Paint me something."  
"I can promise if I did that it would be disappointing."  
"Oh, come on. It would be another opportunity to avoid talking to walls."  
She turned to me at my bedroom door, laughing quietly with a closed mouth.  
"I'll try if that will please you. Now, don't be offensive. Walk me to the door," she ridiculed.  
I wasn't familiar with my companions leaving on such short notice (the night of a party), but somehow, she made me feel alright with any amount of time we spent together. It never felt empty, but it never felt like enough.  
Jezebel wouldn't let me walk her home that night. I was sharp enough to figure I would naturally be denied if I pressed her to stay any longer. I walked her to the door as a satisfactory substitute.  
"There you are!" Celeste bursted out onto the moonlit front steps.  
She began a motherly pat-down of Jezebel's face and arms, much to her illustrative countenance of confusion.  
"Jezebel Zaragoza. Oh my goodness, how you've grown. I haven't seen you since your infancy!" cried the bride-to-be.  
"Celeste," monotonous, Jezebel uttered with a polite nod of her head. "Salud. Yet another vampire falls for your overwhelming beauty. Let's hope he doesn't figure out the rest for another decade or so."  
Celeste continued to pretend she didn't see me, her expression wallowing in a sea of different sentiments for a moment before she forced glee.  
"Well, don't bare me all the miraculous tidings. How many months along are we?"  
Celeste reached for Jezebel's stomach, but she took a step back and past me, faithful she could step back in time, as well, away from this conversation.  
"I'm going home, good luck to you," Jezebel played it off.  
Clasping a hand on my arm for a second, I found she'd lost the courage to look me in the eye. Celeste had made an embarrassing mistake, I conceived at first. Surely Jezebel, who not only spent the entire night entertaining my intentions, but who once willingly staked me as her foe and violently called my bluff, would have mentioned a child thus far.  
Three steps away from the grand pillars Celeste and I stood between, Jezebel came to a stop as one of us kept talking.  
"Oh, my word. I hope I'm not assuming, but the Millers informed me that you were pregnant!" Celeste said.  
The girl with anxious hazel eyes leered at her family acquaintance over her shoulder, the inclement weather that night highlighting the clouds of breath she breathed faster than the gaslights on the front of my home could flicker.  
"Clear the road. Make way, please! Official business of the constables! Make way!" a distant shout strung us all up with uncertainty.  
"What's going on?" another exiting guest wondered at her date.  
A forming crowd of people down the Western side of the road resembled a dark fog at first, but became sharper and sharper in picture as they came closer. There were three sheeted bodies, their discovered possessions being taken from their gurneys. One was a rifle, another a musket, and then, another rifle. The sight of a black and brown dog, one that scampered along like it was oblivious to the loss of its owners, struck Celeste as a clue faster than I.  
"Is that who I think it is?" Celeste susurrated.  
A pale hand slipped from the nearest gurney to Jezebel, frozen on place alongside the point where the Abattoir's tile floor turned to cobblestone.  
The third set of party crashers whispered frantically. "Oh, my god. That one! It's Frankommen Miller."

*** CELESTE ***

_October 26th_

Houseflies take to the bright red pile of cherries that sits in the middle of petite kitchen's only windowsill. They sit next to a cup of frozen cold water, the morning's fog coating the outside of the glass. The house hasn't been cleaned since she'd taken inhabitance of it, bored drawings on the walls and papers scattered about. She was either planning an escape or going stir-crazy living in such a desolate hovel.  
"Jezebel," I called out expectantly.  
The trot of my boots falls out of sync with two sets of others as I drive my step around the bend of the hallway. Kippa strolled ahead of me, Denaeja picking up her mauve calla-lily skirt to check the upstairs.  
I sighed, "We know you're here, do not try to get out of this again—"  
Kippa grips the doorway five steps in front of me, breathlessly looking into the dim washroom across from Jezebel's bedroom.  
"Celeste," she panicked.  
There sat Jezebel in her metal tub, the white skirt of her night clothes covered in a bloody arch. In her left hand was a paper, like a page of spellbook with horrific symbols scribbled all over its aged yellow texture. Her lips moved quicker and made more sound as we drew closer to stop her.  
"Stop her," I cried. "Kippa stop her now!"  
Kippa puts a hand over her mouth, but Jezebel still tried to speak her spell. She still bled like a river.  
Denaeja and Alexis rush in, grabbing her arms and legs to lift her out of her bloody bath and take her to her bedroom.  
She tried to fight and to threaten us by a continuous chant.  
"_Dormantes bosana_!" Alexis shouted a spell over Jezebel.  
Jezebel's throat choked up with a lack of words. She grabbed at her neck, trying to squeeze it, drain it of the words that were clotting her airways.  
Arms and legs stretched in opposition, Kippa quickly took a cold amber gel and massaged it over her growing belly. My heart was leaping into the sky and then pit-falling back into my chest for every moment it took Kippa to fix her concentration against Jezebel's struggle. When Kippa's hands drew away quicker than they had touched down, my throat burned with questions.  
"We're in trouble," she whispered frantically.  
"What is it?" I demanded and waited for her strangely diminished response. "Kippa!"  
Turning at the waist, she looked at me with disturbed pupils. "The placenta is weak. It's preparing to detach from the uterine wall."  
Jezebel licked her dry lips, eyes pinned to the ceiling. My hearing entertaining a wider field as I whispered an incantation to raise its sensitivity. Her heartbeat was thirty beats faster than resting pace.  
I snapped once. Jezebel's restraints fell from her wrists and ankles. She didn't move.  
"Jezebel," I intoned. "Look at me. Right now."  
Her sleepy curls sleekly fell over her face as it gravitated in my direction. The natural curl in her lips and absence of a blink vocal of her sin.  
"How do you think this happened?" I sibilated.  
Snapping my fingers, she inhaled harshly.  
"I'm not a doctor," smartly, she panted.  
I submitted, "Just give it a guess."  
I groom the room with my eyes for the black-clothed Denaeja. "You, summon the rest of the Murder. Tell them further insurance for a flawless pregnancy is required. We need to organize a charm session t—"  
Three heavy bangs. Reticence befalls us. Another three heavy bangs, accompanied by the smell of timber and wet mutt.  
"First...Jezebel gets the door," irritably, I huffed.  
Forcing her to her feet and throwing the late Mrs. Miller's robe at her feet, I watched her robotic and wide-legged walk. She looked ill, dizzy as she idiotically stood listening to the knock instead of answering it.  
Furious, I took it upon myself to put the robe on her myself and tie it at her waist. She whimpered, pushing me away and gripping the wall.  
"Well. You don't want everyone to know you're a murderer, do you?" I scoffed at her. "Now, go on. This is your home now, after all."  
She watched to see if I'd follow her to the door, but Alexis and I held off on disturbing what could possibly be a constable or Governor Devereaux, responsible for the claim on the Miller's property.  
"It's not even light out. What are you doing here?" I heard Jezebel begin the conversation with the solicitor.  
"The Millers are dead, yet Goldilocks appears to still be looking for the right bed to lay her head on," I recognized Niklaus's sarcastic commentary.  
I stepped to the window, moving the curtains back at a slow rate so as not to give my movement in the house cause for notice. Jezebel furrowed her brow, puzzled by his remark.  
"You didn't say a word. You just let me and my family do as we wished. Why?" Klaus continued.  
Her hands were an easier place to look than his face. "...Klaus, I didn't know that—"  
If she wasn't going to tell her story straight, he was going to save her from wasted breath.  
He obstructed her, "A charter comes tomorrow morning. Get on it, and don't come back. You're safer just about anywhere else."  
His notice made her arms limply fly out to the sides in annoyance.  
She resolved him of effort, "I can't. It's not my decision to go anymore."  
He moves so quickly, it looks as though he's yearning to get away from her. He puts something in her hands, rectangular and dark blue.  
"If I can't force you, the least I can do is stay away from you." No one expected it to come from him. Not even me.  
He bid her farewell, "Forgive me, Jezebel."  
She opened the box he'd given her as soon as his foot left the porch and he'd vanished faster than the following clap of thunder. In her hands, she pulled out a thick cloth made of white fleece, small shapes of animals embroidered around the sides and accented by small patterns of ribbon.

**KLAUS**

_November 1st, 1820_

I never met the Millers, but I knew they were said to have had secrets; moreover, the delayed payments on their home was always a needle in the governor's eye. If Jezebel was their eventual end, she probably got caught up in their suspicious spider's web. I kept trying to justify the things I'd heard, though I was as biased as they came; I was never one to be scared off by a little carnage.  
Elijah suggested my roulette gambling skills be saved for the calm hours of the morning and far from the Quarter to keep the peace. At least, if I was insistent on a round of ten-step duel, I had time to bury the evidence and forfeit a set of draft letters to the men's wives or children. To get to the clearing where I led my squad of feeble noble lads, I had to pass by the Millers farmhouse.  
I remembered two days beforehand, walking up to that door and seeing Jezebel for the last time. The smell of blood, new and old, wafted out from her door and onto my clothes and the ride of breeze outside. It was so plentiful, I sent myself home to change my apparel because it seemed to cling to me like pipe smoke.  
My lesser comrade who had tagged along for the fatal gameplay, Donnard Powell, was the richest man (though, blind and easy to fool) to have lived in our city thus far. "Somewhere around here," he began without any idea he was standing next to his topic, "is the house where the house girl killed the Millers. Apparently, she was one of them mestiza commoners they got on the market; thought she could get the estate that way."  
"To think, she skipped over witnesses. If you had looking glasses, jolly Donnie, you could have been next," I lashed at him.  
"Where's your sense of humor today, Niklaus?" the governor's favorite lad, Jean-Claude of Alsace, snickered.  
His partner, a struggling cellist named Renald Graff of the Graff butcher family, answered him quietly. "Didn't know those Millers could afford a housegirl with such a sparse produce year. Have you seen anything growing in their orchards lately? Maybe they were hoping she'd latch onto that hopeless boy of theirs and there'd be hope yet for the working class."  
Graff could never keep a lid on his targeting words. Apparently, he fancied to be the first to die that cheery morning.  
My eyes couldn't help but graze the property and prowl for a sign of life, yet both unfortunate and fortunate, a head of long black hair was kneeling underneath a bright red tree growing amidst the humid morning dew. When she heard the march of our footsteps, her head rose and caught up with my stare.  
I announced to the lot of them, "Meet me at the crest of the hill. Feel free to begin without me. Excuse me, gentlemen."  
Jezebel breathed out through her nose upon my approach, sitting up on her knees to dust the dirt off her hands. There was a significant difference in her stomach size and the color of the flesh around her eyes over the course of two days.  
I pulled her up, both to scold her and to my consideration of the strain she was already enduring doing things on her own.  
"What are you doing!" I barked discreetly.  
She gave me a funny look as if I'd been redundant. "There was a dead cat in the yard this morning, I'm burying it."  
Walking past me, she wiped her hands on the black cloth of her skirt and walked up the back steps of the kitchen to disappear. I tried to follow her in, but with the Millers gone, her personal invitation inside was due. I bounced back and caught myself on the railing from the house's protective transparent barrier, sighing roughly.  
"Yes, you're stating the obvious. Do you have no discretion for your own health?" I groaned against her random answer. "What about the ship I sent for you!"  
The front of my face was met with something soft but blunt, and then a burning sensation I could only distinguish as a pair of eyes waiting for me to react. The object unfolds over one of my shoulders, the pale white colors and raw cotton smell of the gifted baby blanket falling all the way over into my hands. The stoop of the back entrance to the house made the tiny and agitated Jezebel seem a foot taller. But what did size have to do with anything when she aimed her words high.  
She splintered, "I never said I was ready to go! I don't want your gifts. It doesn't make you seem giving or merciful, it's a cry for attention you already have. I don't need your support for my state, either. If you had stayed and listened to me, you'd be able to see things are more complicated than how they reflect."  
The wide boots, made for a male, that she wore everyday paralleled to mine on the second to first step of the entrance.  
I argued "Oh, I have the story, love. A better one than you can tell. You're with child and a rumored assassin. This isn't mercy, it's common sense. You don't belong here, and you put yourself willingly in danger by staying!"  
"Fucking cabron. Who's fault is that!" biting back, she waved a tense hand at me.  
I didn't speak to that, and she came closer, fixing the ill-fitted shoulder of her moss green blouse, embroidered with branch-like shapes. "I didn't kill the Millers. They were a very capable bunch who cared for me even if I meant nothing to them."  
She pulled away her sheath of a fat braid that escalated down her back into a tail-like tip, she exposed a dark brown symbol imprinted on the back of her neck. She claimed, "This is my proof. My pack marks the werewolves who haven't awakened their curse. It will disappear when I turn– When I finally kill someone with my own hands. It was a full moon when they died. It couldn't have been me."  
There was no summit of a reason for what had happened. Not even the doctor, who were with the very constables that came upon them, could diagnose what went wrong. They had all died at once, of the same cause, which could only be known then as old age. It didn't make sense, but it didn't do her any favors to be overly frantic about proving herself innocent.  
"It was a brutal robbery during their hunt," I insinuated.  
At first, she wavered on my counter of an account. "What?"  
I pulled her in by the forearm, reinforcing the story I was going to tell. "Elijah confirmed it yesterday morning. I would save your breath."

"Klaus," the silvery tone that made chest harness a severe warmth. "You know that's not true. Something happened. Even I know that.""But you are the closest culprit to any further story. And if you're going to be stubborn and bull-headed enough to stay, you'll like to have an alibi to sustain yourself and your little one." My back to her, I couldn't see her face, and if I looked I was sure it would make me give away the blossoming caution I felt for her. She went on, "I don't wish to waste your efforts on me. So I hope you're as understanding when I tell you why I didn't say anything about...a child." Her last two words struck like she'd had the wind knocked out of her. "I'm not keeping it," Jezebel stopped holding her breath once the rest flooded out from her mouth. I couldn't keep pretending a literary classic I'd read four times or more was any more important than this discourse of ours. I stood from the armchair, setting the book down harshly and maneuvering around the table to put some compelling distance between us."You seemed to be confused. Usually, the father is the one with seniority over that kind of news," I stoned her intimate duo of discolored eyes soared up to the ceiling resentfully. "There isn't one."  
She took a step after me, but I spun around in time to catch onto her arms, and keep her from following me into the next room. Grimly, I gazed upon her, but she couldn't be less submissive to my sharp and telling movements or the squeeze I put into my grip.  
Through gritted teeth, I soured, "I am telling you not to waste your breath. I told you once, I will not tell you again. Conceive the idea or not, I am not the selfless person you interpret me as just because I've mimicked a few gestures of good will. It's my way of preserving my family and my home. Now, stay. Away."  
Roughly letting her go, I turned my back on her, interpretively for the last time. I walked into a wall of thin air that kept me from going anywhere. Confused, I tried to walk forward again. I hit the same invisible obstacle that kept me from leaving the parlor.  
Turning to Jezebel, I find her with an outstretched hand, pulsing with riveting orange spirals.  
"You're a witch," I yelped mistrustfully. "You're a witch?"  
Jezebel continued on, "I can't go away. I found someone who's going to take the baby. You should know who it is."


	7. Fate In The Deck

**MARCEL**

"I suppose since you've proved your worth you'd like a bigger reward," Tristan says.  
I'm quiet, listening as he walks around one of my venues. He likes the tall ceilings, the rugged look of cement missing in all the right places, the amount of space he has to do his dirty work and hide at the same time.  
If I can't do what he asks me to do this time, it'll just be another object I lose to his advantages.  
"This one might be a little messy, seeing as no one really foresees the outcome of it, but I need you to do it because I believe you can. I want Jezebel Zaragoza's vessel. Specifically, I want you to put her back on it," he enunciates.  
Setting me up for failure, it seemed like. He wants _me_ to put a grown woman—who not only did me a gigantic favor but has a habit of doublecrossing people—with magical powers I don't have back inside of a prison cell.  
"Seems like a lot of steps, especially since the Mikaelsons are in talks with her. If it isn't murky enough, it's not gonna help anybody when talks turn into handshakes. Besides, I thought the point was to release her. You were gonna trap them on the vessel, instead, for protection," I say doubtfully.  
He pats the Prohibition-era bar counter, its art deco grooves a little dusty but still sharper than knife.  
"Well, plans can change," Tristan states. "The vessel is well-known and everyone knows what kind of cargo it holds. Putting the Mikaelsons on it? Just as deadly to us as it would be a Seraph. All it takes is a pair of strong hands to destroy it and we all fall down. Not to mention the scenario where, let's say, the Mikaelsons are wanted alive and for use. There is a hoard of unwelcomed guests coming, Marcellus. None of which come in peace. And surely, this town and the people in it will be obliterated if Jezebel is not ready for surrender. So, trap her and save your family: us. Those unwelcomed guests want to beat you to it. I'd hurry."  
Thinking it a way of sending me off, I turn my back on him, ready to get this dicey chore out of the way.  
"And if the Mikaelsons should display a distaste towards our custody of the girl..." Tristan begins. "Change their mind. One way or another."

**KLAUS**

I couldn't get her to say a word to any of my remarks or her plans to hurt Aurora. That's something I have not considered: am I going to sanction a battle to ensue when we find her?  
Jezebel takes notice of how I examine the mystical injury on the side of her face.  
"Don't worry about it," she finally says. "She's trying to get my attention."  
There are lots of questions zipping about in my mind like a swarm of carpenter bees, but I refrain from distracting this already reckless driver.  
"On the contrary, love, the less people involved in this prophecy, the better," I state.  
She cautions, "You wouldn't be quick to speak on it if you knew how much power I have over the matter."  
"Well, then pray tell. Why should I root for you?"  
"If you listened to me at all, you know the Murder _is _the thing that created you. It wasn't your mother, it wasn't some witch in your viking village—they all had to come from somewhere and it was from those things that are on the loose as we speak. Do you understand? How else is supernatural kind any different than humans? We all think there is _something _bigger that made us. Well, you're right. And they're fucking crazy."  
So, the usual reason: She's pissed off and ready to fight.  
"Let me guess. We're going to be dealing with the 'ring-around-the-rosy' theory if we don't listen to you," I comment.  
She comes to a stop at a red light on the road, turning her head away from me in a composed confusion of what I'm allocating.  
"What the hell is that?" She scoffs.  
"In a word, once you're ashes, we all fall down."  
Once we've reached our destination, she looks me over when she puts the engine of her outdated emerald car to sleep at our destination. It's the last place we've thought to look: Marcel's recycled cathedral. We're in luck for the reason that I can smell her from outside.  
"I will decide when violence is to result. Consider it an example of the grip you claim I don't have. You must let me talk to her," I tell her.  
Jezebel comments, "It's not your decision. She's already set a pretty hostile mood."  
I remove myself from the vehicle, following her closely, until she turns to me at the entrance.  
"Try to limit yourself to hair-pulling," I order as she gets out of the car.  
She slams the door, looking at me through the open window.  
"I don't think you would want that; the situation in which that comes in handy is much different when I'm around women," she replies.  
She evokes a sheepish smile out of me, sticking her hand into her side of the car and pressing the four-door lock as though I'm a child waiting in the backseat.  
I wait a moment before I undo her action, to meddle outside the front entrance.  
"There you are," inside, Aurora grimaces, "Oh! How unsightly. I suppose that nasty scar is my fault, I might have toyed with your vessel a little too much."  
Jezebel direly commands, "Just set it down, and we can forget about it; you've got the attention you crave, that's enough_._"  
"So in charge and in control. It reminds me of him...Nik. In every little syllable. Maybe that's why I—"  
Jezebel interposes, "This isn't about him."  
"Then, why tell me to stay away from him?" Aurora's excitement stirs. "Come on, it's obvious! _You _are jealous of us!"  
I hear Jezebel move toward her despite that devastating wildness in Aurora's voice. I find myself letting go of the golden handles of the chapel doors, listening closely.  
"Is that the only claim you have against me?" Jezebel scoffs. "You know, I'm a lot more fun when I want to be. And I'm not one to turn down a redhead."  
Cracking glass echoes in my ears and Jezebel groans frustratedly.  
"That was a cheap shot, even for you," Aurora sighs, "You're desperate. That means you'll do just about anything for this thing! So we're going to play a little game. One I think even you would enjoy. And then, we'll see who's leaving New Orleans."  
A quick snap of plastic and breaking pottery sounds. The furious flush of noise makes me quickly strut into the threshold. What I thought was a party of two was a party of ten, including eight very familiar faces that accorded to my sister's sireline. All heads turn at the sound of my shoes hitting tile floors.  
I announce myself, "Stop this charade."  
Aurora's red hair gleams in the moonlight as she walks closer to me in surprise.  
"This is not a charade, Nik. This is an intervention. You're in danger of losing the love of your life: Me. We're finally together after so long apart, all the world before us, if we can just dodge a few minor obstacles like this nuisance of a prophecy, my brother's internment, the insufferable influence of Elijah... But what I cannot overcome is what Jezebel will try and convince you of. She means to make me the monster, but you don't know her like I do! I've waited far too long to share you now. Call me jealous," Aurora exclaims.  
"I remember full well the extent of your jealousies, but what surprises me is that they extend to the rival witch. She's a weapon of ours. Aurora, you can't believe she means anything to me," I tell her.  
Aurora interposes, "But I do believe it! I see it, the way you look at her. I think you love her."  
I have to stop myself from looking at Jezebel while she is expecting me to escape the neutral zone of the battlefield sooner or later.  
I step toward Aurora, "You know I love you, Aurora."  
Aurora smiles, her cheeks reddening at my confession. Jezebel jolts to her feet when Aurora looks down at the vessel in her hands.  
"I'm so glad you admitted that. I wanted Jezebel to hear it before I destroyed this," Aurora mutters happily.  
"_Madre mía,_" Jezebel mumbles below her breath, looking at the cieling, "I'll play the game. Whatever it is, it's between the two of us. I lose, you can do whatever you want. You lose, at least, you'll have legs to get the fuck out of my way. Let's go."  
Aurora brightens in merit, hands clasping together cheerfully.  
"Now, that's the spirit!" A dangerous note in her voice rides the chapel gym's echo.

**AURORA**

I explicate, "This is how you play. Each of the cards has a number on it. Since they're tarot, sometimes they are reversed. That would make it the negative value of whatever number you've drawn. If upright you pull, you've earned a positive value. We'll draw three times. Then, we'll add them and see who has the biggest number in the end. You know the prize."  
I have Chantal, a sire of Rebekah's, shuffle the deck for us.  
Jezebel leans back in her seat, arms crossed and dazed in fashion. She doesn't look even remotely worried. We can change that quickly. I love watching the stony one of the brood grovel like a child.  
"You know, I hear a lot of things about you—"  
I draw, displaying an upright six of cups. A small sound of glee escapes me as, deadened, she listens.  
"Especially, about the mystery child."  
Nik tries to break in, "Aurora—"  
"I don't see one now. Says a lot about you," I continue anyway.  
Jezebel watches Chantal fan out the cards again before her to choose.  
"Just relieved it wasn't my brother's. You know how that goes," she snidely returns.  
I see a simper of Klaus's face, and two of the other sires around him. It makes my stomach jump for high enough ground which I can shoot back from. She thinks she can play the calm and collected one, but she doesn't know what's coming next.  
She draws an inverted nine of swords. My smile widens, though, I can see Nik's lessen in good sentiment. I'm not sure who's side he's on anymore. It shouldn't matter. The whole point of the game is to get a running start and watch the loser descend into madness.  
"Now, girls, let's not be nasty," Klaus unctuously pleads with a wide smirk.  
"On the contrary, it was just something I heard," innocently, I declare. "Hadn't any idea it was true."  
I draw with the shiny black border of the tarot to the sky, then turn it over to reveal the star. It counts for four, that puts me at thirteen and Jezebel at negative nine. She's hanging by a thread.  
I point fingers, "For all I know, that's why you could be here. To take back the father."  
Klaus's guttural restraint of a laugh comes in time with Jezebel's similar cheeky grin. She has no idea the possibilities he has yet to tell her about.  
I add, "I do a lot of assuming perhaps, I should ask. Do you still love him?"  
Jezebel flips over another arcana piece; an upright ace of cups. Not much to help her cause. Still, she doesn't back down. Her harrowing eyes and reserved body language all in good keeping.  
"Do you?" She answers with an inquiry.  
"That's the entire reason I'm here. To prove that I did!" I sourly remind her.  
Her eyes shoot upwards to examine mine, the thick brows on her face touching base with the tips of her might long lashes. "You didn't hear me. I said '_do you'_. English isn't my first language, but I'm sure I asked in present tense."  
I flip over my last card lividly, standing from the table. Three of pentacles. I've won. I've done it! This is it for her!  
"Nik," I call out. "Crush it. Crush the vessel."  
He who has been entrusted as a neutral who holds the prize stands from his seat, stepping forward eagerly.  
"Answer her question," he demands.  
Jezebel is still browsing the rainbow of cars, the other sires getting restless just watching her.  
I wasn't saying anything the entire time. It was humiliating to not have a decent reason for holding back. But I had yet to accept one fact. I followed Tristan here. I came to help Tristan as any decent sister would. Klaus was an afterthought that entertained me, but the thought of him being mine again...it threw me into a state of fleeting ecstasy. Because I forgot he wasn't Tristan, that he wasn't ever going to be any more loyal to me than my own brother.  
Just then, Jezebel slaps a card over on its back. The world. Twenty one points intertwine with her negative value of eight to equal thirteen. We've tied.  
She stands to meet my eyes. "Don't interfere in my life and I won't interfere in yours. You're lucky I don't kill you for this."  
She doesn't want revenge, or a word against me... She's just going to leave. She's going to take him with her!  
I hasten over to Klaus, ripping the item from his hands at an angle and break a large piece of the sundial off the shining golden tablet. The crunch of ivory and fine stone echoes in the room. Jezebel holds back a noise of pain. A dark line of destruction has appeared along her collarbone and neck.  
One more divide and it's over. Klaus stops my hand from bending at the wrist and taking another piece off.  
He grabs me, bringing me to the outside of the cathedral at vampire speed and presses me against the wall of the back exit.  
"...Niklaus!" I huff lewdly.  
The wheels are turning in his mind, but to me, they are fogged over by his conflicted gaze. _We're here for a reason. Show me we are, my love. _  
"I tire of this fantasy. You were someone I left behind years ago. I am sorry, but I cannot put up a performance for you any longer—there is nothing between us now," he scowls, slowly letting go and turning away.  
I push myself up off the dirty wall where I lean, heart pounding at the noise he's uttered.  
"You're just angry. Lovers fight, but I promise that we are meant to be. I can prove it-"  
"You think you know me? Then, know this. If you hurt Jezebel, if you get in _my _way I will gladly end you. Your spoiled little mind will then associate me with the Devil, and when your memories are rendered history, maybe you'll finally see you are— Ah! Nothing to me," he viciously interjects. "As of now, I need nothing from you."

**JEZEBEL**

Every time I look over at Klaus in this quiet car, I can just see how he seeps in his disappointment. I light myself a cigarette, and considering it to be just the thing he needs, I offer him the very last of this week's carton. He glances at it before turning his head away.  
"I prefer a hearty drink in place of something so short-lived and less effective," he recalls.  
I sighed, tossing it back on my dashboard, "I know. I just thought you could use it, anyway."  
I hold the burning cigarette outside my driver window, away from his senses.  
"What? To cope with the oncoming set of surreal consequences of upsetting my ex?" He estimates my intent.  
"Would you prefer to talk about it? Because I wouldn't."  
At the stoplight, I release the smoke to my left shoulder and into the wind instead of his face. He's staring at me somewhat intently to the point where I'm convinced I lost him to different issue.  
"...I told her about the child because she found the gift that I gave to you all those years ago."  
Nik's not a gossip; he never has been. He likes a buildup. She had to have pressured him into torturing her with stories of me and my happiness with Klaus once upon a time. Aurora is as self-destructive as it could get in that way.  
Moreover, I couldn't place the gift he was talking about until it clicked in my mind why he'd bring up the baby in the same sentence. "Why did you save it if you knew I wouldn't use it?"  
He wouldn't just admit it. No, he keeps it general. "People change their minds."  
I shake my head. People also remember how it happened, usually, but that's also a missing factor here. I didn't know how or when that baby came to be. But I knew what it was, and it was something Klaus needed to be sheltered from.  
I leave the topic alone and stop the car in front of the Abattoir, turning off the engine. He shifts in his seat until he is facing me and my nicotine insomnia. His bodiless foam green eyes are crossing the dividing patch of flesh between my brown and green irises as if there's some special effect that tears away to expose a real expression.  
"When I heard of the birth, it came with the news of your death. How can something like that be misconstrued?"  
I could have given Elijah away. I could have given everything up in this car if it meant Klaus would trust me again. But my better conscience got the best of me. There was a time and place for everything and it wasn't in his back alley driveway.  
I answer, "The same way everything else was misconstrued. Closed minds. And for the record, I'm not here to proclaim my love for you or get you to see things my way. I'm just here to fix my mistake."  
"Which would be?"  
"Not telling you the truth in the first place."  
"You lack to remember, love, that eventually the truth did come out. The truth in which you were a traitor and a fraud. You hurt my siblings, you lead me along, you pretended to be a prey where you were the predator!"  
When I didn't speak to that, Klaus's eyes move out the window to the crowded street of tourists hustling from bar to bar on the through street.  
"How did you know it would draw?" He changed the subject. "The game."  
I honestly say, "I didn't. I relied on the odds of the given task. Sometimes, that's all you can do."  
I count the seconds he doesn't respond before I put the cigarette out in between my fingers and toss it outside.  
"You haven't changed. Not at all," suddenly, he has to say.  
I pull a piece paper with my number on it from the beginning of my blouse and put it between two of my pointy fingertips for him to take.  
"We'll see. Give me a call later," I add, "we'll see how much of a traitor you think I am when you hear what I have to say. You have to listen eventually, Nik. Your life depends on it."


	8. Hereditary

**REBEKAH**

When I got out of that coffin, my heart was fleeting with joy to see Elijah's face. I've been staked by his ex and drowned by Nik's. That's quite a combination I've been through.  
He brought me fresh clothes and promised to explain the "new situation at hand" once I returned to his side in the car. I think I've figured it out. I check the pockets of the jacket he lent me: there lives the phone number of Jezebel Zaragoza. I think it might be a joke at first, but then, what would we have to laugh about if she caused so much heartache? I love my brothers, but they are stupid enough to forget when it's time to make the right decision and leave the past in the past. So much so, I'm not sure they know what the term present day is.  
"Still hungry, are we?" Elijah asks when he sees my unhappy face.  
"Aya, Aurora and now, Jezebel?" I sigh, holding up the paper. "You two need a lesson in women."  
"Have you not damned some to an eternity and viciously antagonized others? You claimed you left things on better terms with Jezebel above the three," Elijah says as he retrieves it.  
That's only because she did me a favor so large it was unrepayable. A smart move for a smart girl. But lest we forget, big favors can be withdrawn or even turned into a curse.  
"You know what she did. Why bring her into this?" I frown.  
Elijah leans on the car door, looking as though he's having complications explaining himself. He silently opens a new blood bag for himself, slitting open the top with a graceful slice of his nail.  
"Alright. Does this posse of ex-sweethearts believe in this prophecy, too?" I scoff.  
The silence has gone on so long, I can't remember Elijah's tone of voice.  
"You don't," I pray of him.  
"You'd be foolish to ignore the manifestation of witchcraft and premonitions in this time."  
"We can't be killed!"  
"The prophecy does say one will fall by family," Elijah responds.  
I analyze, "Well, I wouldn't hurt you. Freya hates traitors, but she has an allegiance to Finn of sorts...so that leaves Nik."  
"If we're to be morally correct...it isn't out of the question for any of us to find needles in the fruit at this point. It is not the role of family that has me wanting to pack up and leave now. It's Jezebel. When Aurora spoke out about her compulsion issue, Niklaus and I had one of our infamous quarrels. I dread if Jezebel speaks out next...the one who falls by family could be the most guilty-hearted of brothers," he frets for himself.  
I wish I were able to console him or to change his mind. I remember 1820; time and reality warped like never before. Elijah was happy, engaged to be married, moving on from all this. Niklaus had shaped up from his addiction to mischief and took on the form of a better man all for the sake of the beautiful foreigner he'd fallen for. And me? It felt like I had a future again; a life that had a beginning and end that involved love and change. All because of that girl. She gave Klaus and I everything, and then she took it away, adding the vulnerable Elijah to the mix.  
"Elijah?" I mutter.  
He holds the car door open for me when he returns from the nearby counter.  
"...Did Jezebel say why she hurt her? Celeste?" I questioned.  
Elijah leans on the door, putting his hand in his pocket as I slowly took my seat inside.  
"I've made my peace with the insignificant past. If you haven't, I suggest you keep your distance, Rebekah. We needn't a brand new haul of melodramatics to discourage this family," he indirectly claims, "and please try not to provoke her. It's harmful enough we've put her in the middle a second time."

**VINCENT**

A light knock at my door invites me to unchain and unlock all its bolts. I had them put on as soon as this town got a few new rogue assets. Jezebel's eyes follow me without the rotation of her head as I step aside to let her in.  
She holds up a small cage with an even tinier bird fluttering around on the inside.  
"Never show up to the home of a warlock without an offering," she intones.  
She sets it on my coffee table, removing her jacket while she watches me close the door slowly. Almost immediately, I've started to rethink what I called her for.  
"I want to control it. My ancestral magic," in spite of my hesitations, I tell her.  
I could have asked just about no one else for the favor. Old magic is out of the question in the French Quarter; those people who go off into the night and strip down for a dance with the devil are the same people that wake up the next morning shunned and with a due execution. There are reasons the DuBois name was scorned for complying to the rules of the Knot and changed to Griffith.  
She crosses her arms, looking up at me from the edge of the coffee table. I seat myself across from her.  
"That's a quick change of heart for a man who was so adamant to abstain from all witchcraft," Jezebel comments.  
"That's just it. I failed to control it before, but I can't afford it anymore. Marcel Gerard is in full swing of being the Strix's middleman. He tells me they're bribing a local, Van Nguyen, to become the new Regent," I begin.  
"You said you were the Regent," she frowns.  
"I give my provisions and support, but I ain't no leader. Until now. Marcel all but attacked my methods of keeping witch business as _witch business. _He got to me. On top of that, I'm not letting vampire scumbags like Tristan De Martel take control of nine different Louisiana covens by making a puppet of a college kid," I ranted. "You said my ancestral magic was derived from the Murder that your mother belonged to. You should know enough to teach me—and you're the only full-blooded Seraph in town."  
"Vincent, adapting a new way of life will not suddenly make you a leader. I can think of so many more things that make you more qualified than some child," Jezebel advises.  
"You have to understand! What the New Orleans witches see in me is a man who has made too many mistakes and has had nothing to lose in the last twenty years. They immediately think about a compassionate flake who helped the Mikaelsons once or twice along the way," I doubt myself.  
"What do the Mikaelsons have to do with running for Regent?" Jezebel questions.  
"The witches have been under their feet for centuries! You of all people should know," I complain.  
She stands, her platformed boots clapping on my floors in her light pacing.  
"Vincent, when I urged you to live up to your birth magic, I meant for the sake of having emergency leverage; not to prove someone wrong," she lectures me.  
"So, you wouldn't mind being the only one with this kind of power in a place where everyone hates you when the Murder comes marching in?" I bellow, standing up. "It's you against an angry majority. Come on, Jez, even one person of your own caliber will do you some good."  
Hearing my command, her hands swim from the adjustment of her tribal tube top to her hips, her curvy and lean legs strutting towards me like a hungry panther.  
"I could teach you how to take over all of Northern America in twenty-four hours with just a cellphone. How willing will you be to help the outlaw when you're as good as that? You're a wonderful man, Vincent, but you're a follower. Whether or not you want to help me or yourself, I can't encourage you anymore," she suggests casually.  
Her phone chimes, and she immediately directs her attention to its glowing screen. I grab her arm before she can excuse herself.  
"They're gonna pick tonight!" I snap.  
She rips her arm away, glaring into my frustrated eyes.  
"There's nothing I can do!" she cries. "Not without my human body."  
Coming down from the heat of our conversation, she exhales heavily outside my door.  
"Treat this like a typical Thursday, Vincent. It might help you clear your mind," she suggests.

**JEZEBEL**

I roll my eyes to the sound of jovial trumpets and tambourines in the distance. New Orleans wouldn't be New Orleans without the sound of overreaching jazz everywhere you go, but maybe I would hate it less if it took to terrible indie rock more often. I spent a lot of time in California in the seventies; I guess I've developed a culture bias.  
I twist my phone from the small pocket of my jacket made of a werewolf's coat. I get sent straight to Klaus's voicemail.  
"I've been told by a man to wait in a graveyard several times before, but at least they showed up on time. Ten more minutes, and then, I leave. Call me," I warn him.  
The loose cobblestones in the floor grind behind me, causing me to stop my step and put the phone away. I turn to face my company. The young man stands his ground against my vicious gaze, looking sorry as ever.  
"You're the old one," He begins.  
I don't answer. He licks his lips stepping towards me.  
"My name is Van Nguyen. I hear you're trying to turn Vincent Griffith into a devil worshipper to get the better of me," he whispers to me. "What right do you have sticking your nose into a coven's business?"  
Word travels fast. I pray I am not standing of an aftermath that Vincent might have achieved overstepping his boundaries.  
I smirk, "I'm the one who is under arrest? Tristan gave you a good amount of money to be his bitch for the time being. Do you know where all that money will go in the end? What are your sisters going to think when they hear you took money from vampires?"  
He clasps his hands together, holding them to his lips.  
"What Tristan did or did not offer me is even less of your concern," Van says. "As the new Regent, I'm going to run you out of here. We all know war follows the Murder wherever it goes."  
A hoard of women and men, youthful or spending their last breath protesting me, remove themselves from the dark shadows beyond and between the graves of the Black Clay Cemetery once I've called them out.  
"You threaten our land, powerful or not. Having a Seraph in the Quarter can imbalance the divided authority and relative peace we've worked hard to keep," the girl in a glimmering sari says to me.  
"Peace? Really?" I mock her concern. "You're alright being shoved into a few square miles of land while vampires get the rest?"  
"The Ancestors—"  
"Are ghosts with a gossip column," I finish for Van.  
I remove my hands from the warmth of fur pocket lining and cross my arms.  
"The Ancestors have warned us of you_, _Jezebel Zaragoza. You, your own ancestors, your mother—you have all ruined our system and used your lineage as an excuse," A woman with a Nigerian accent calls from the front. "Now, you're going to let your rejected sisters upset the balance of nature!"

My chest is hosting a wildfire of restlessness and burning up my self-control. If they really knew shit, they'd know killing me was the opposite of what they're trying to achieve. I guess there was one person who could be blamed, one who didn't get the message.  
Marcel Gerard steps out into the corner of my eye. He holds out my vessel for everyone to see. He must have seen Vincent hide it for me. Or their feud was less sour and still sweet enough to share dangerous grounds. The enthusiastic coven aggressively asserts Marcel to do their dirty work.  
The vessel snaps in half before my sight. The elasticity in the skin of my arm snaps like a twig; a dark and jagged line is visible from my wrist to my elbow. The world disappears and a blank screen enfolds my eyes.

**REBEKAH**

Sitting down with my family the moment I got home felt like a dream that had taken a long time to come true. An entire bottle of Jack Daniel's split evenly and empty between us, night unfolding with a prelude of grey-purples and orange above our heads in the courtyard. Freya's hand is in mine and Niklaus, though trying his best to enjoy, stewing in worry of his latest phone call.  
"Did he say what it was about?" Elijah asked the troubled Niklaus.  
Jezebel.  
"It was about Jezebel. There was an incident with the witches; he wouldn't disclose it explicitly in his location," Klaus hesitantly tells us. "It's fair to have anticipated the presence of bad blood when she chose to stay."  
I look to Elijah, who asserts with his returned gaze he is aware of nothing on the subject.  
"Let's just hope she hasn't killed anyone this early in the night," Freya relies on the most common outcome.  
Vincent Griffith presents himself coming through our gates.  
"It's the other way around, actually," Vincent replies to my statement. "Her vessel was destroyed. We don't know by who. She's not tethered to the living any longer."  
Klaus stands, exchanging glances with Elijah.  
I ask bewilderedly, "What does it matter? She's a part of the prophecy, she could have been an accomplice to any one of our deaths."  
"Precisely," Elijah agrees.  
Klaus isn't so reluctant to take a breath. "That's impossible, the vessel was hidden in our home. She gave it to me—"  
He pauses, looking to Elijah once more.  
"Unless it was a fake. She asked me to hide it, she must have been testing me with some gift shop imitation she dug up," he sighs.  
"Well, she gave me the real one. While I was out dealing with witch business, someone left my door wide open. I've never invited any vampires inside," Vincent insinuates, looking over at Freya.  
Aggressively, she asserts, "Are you accusing me of something?"  
"Not really. But if not for my initial explanation, you'd be my second. Look, I know how Jezebel ties into your prophecy. And believe me, she's gotta be alive in order for you find a way around it," Vincent cautions us.  
Elijah wants to know, "She's tried to poison and maul just about everyone in her way, how could she possibly help us?"  
"Because we never considered what we were in the way of," Klaus answers before Vincent. "She was going to tell me about the Murder of Seraphi. Someone or something didn't want her to tell us what was happening."  
Vincent was silent long enough for use to draw a silence with him. No one knows what to do.  
Then, he speaks, "You still interested?"

Klaus is sitting in the table's end armchair, swirling his drink like he always does when he's prepared to have his time wasted.  
Vincent crosses his arms over until his hands are inside his underarms, taking a breath before he begins. "The story goes back to the Maya. Refugees from Egypt had made it to Mesoamerica by boat. They were taken captive by the leading Mayan territory, and by order of the emperor and chief, the women would be sacrifices to an old universal deity to stop a draught. However, a shaman had fallen in love with a girl chosen for sacrifice, so he looked to alchemy to bring her back to life—from clay—"  
"Alright, now you've lost me. A girl made from clay?" I doubt.  
"You've got to understand, some of this is going to be a bunch of made up crap. Unless you've got papers to prove otherwise, this is what happened," Vincent asserts to me. "Anyway, this girl, Carmila, took advantage of the shaman and forced him to revive the other girls who had been killed. This was the first time the balance of nature had been upset. The village believed they were winged messengers sent from the deity to deliver them harvest. With the upset balance came a logical dip in a parallel dimension, which is in and of itself, the Veil. Purgatory. If they could make that happen, they could do other things, ands they did. They wanted to make more magical beings."  
"Witches," Freya guessed.  
"Now, that's a hell of a story. Let's get to the part where they come into play in this murder mystery, shall we?" Elijah mocks the issue before any of us.  
Vincent corrects him, "This ain't a joke, man, this is history. You can't see the future without knowing the history first. Carmila is a past mistake what we are trying to prevent!"  
It fails to make sense until Vincent takes a breath to add the most important detail.  
"So, Jezebel was essentially trying to prevent another dictatorship where, apparently, Celeste was not supplemental," Klaus expels his most recent theory. "Why should we care?"  
"Because Jezebel is Carmila's daughter. Somebody who you couldn't care less is the key to who lives and who dies," Vincent hisses.  
It clicks for all of us at one time. Did Jezebel ever mention a mother? To any of us? No. In fact, we knew almost nothing about her at this point.  
Vincent's gestures get crazier and crazier the deeper into this explanation he goes. He had to have studied this, studied her, or even been obsessed with her long enough to know all this word for word. "Jezebel killed her mother when she was born, but there was one complication; there was a transfer of magic from Carmila into Jezebel. The magic she took was the only thing keeping Carmila alive. Once Carmila was gone, the Murder was certain that they'd all become extinct. But Celeste had a theory that to get their leader back without disturbing the balance...Carmila had to return in a way that was acceptable to nature and to the rival witch species. She had to be reborn."  
My heart skipped a beat.  
"What do you mean?" Klaus catches on.  
"The only way Carmila could return with powers, and with a beating heart, is by doing to Jezebel what Jezebel did to her. She had to be reborn, and Jezebel would have to die. It's the only way to patch up the hole we leave in the Veil when a strong entity enters and escapes. Celeste put Carmila in Jezebel."  
Klaus cup of swishing Bourbon freezes like a lake in winter. Elijah inhales quietly as he exchange glances with me, going over synchronized theories in our heads.  
I couldn't help myself. I blurted agitatedly, "Great. And the bloody bitch tried to put Carmila in me!"  
No wonder the girl had the nerve to keep her mouth shut about all this. Celeste was conducting it and waiting for all our untimely deaths!  
My head shifts over at Elijah, just wondering what is happening behind those blank eyes, or if there is deep thought at all. Celeste just became a stranger to him; a stranger he was going to give his heart to traditionally at an altar of marriage. He can't hide his feelings if he tries.  
Elijah swallows his painful experience and dismay, proclaiming, "If they tried it once, they'll try it again. At least, if they've not realized the child made it."  
"They know. Believe me, they know. Yet, Jezebel still exists and that still tips the balance. The balance is the one thing the Murder has unanimously promised to keep on track for their own good. No balance, no magic, no supernatural, no control."  
I'm waiting for Klaus to put an end to this drama. For once, I just needed him to stand up and say "to hell with this." We were done with Jezebel, it was over. And with our own prophecy to worry about, who needs a new set of problems without our names on them?  
Freya inquires, "And I suppose you want us to do something about it."  
"Well, there's only one thing to do and if you know anything about it, you need to speak up now. Where's the body?" Vincent interrogates us.  
I frown, "...What body? Her body?"  
Klaus sets his empty glass down harshly, rising from his velvety seat. "Tristan is the only one who knows."  
"Not quite," Vincent glowers.  
He rocks his arms into the back of one of the dining chairs as he looks at Nik out of the corner of his eyes.  
"He knows where it was dumped, but he doesn't know how to get to it. Friends of mine seen Kingmaker contractors rooting around in the bayou near the waters. They make like it's a potential site for a new Kingmaker tower, but really they just keep missing the mark. My guess is she's buried out there somewhere, but that's as far as Tristan could figure. "  
He turns away from the imposing silence that has left us all paralleling a specific sort of suspicion about each other. I'd like to say what we're all thinking. This has got to be misunderstood. We didn't just find out centuries later an innocent girl died and the contending maker of our prophecy lived.  
"So, I guess we're to play scavenger hunt, too. Just be honest, don't you think this is a lot of fuss for one witch?" I sigh, crossing my arms and swiveling my hips calmly to observe each of my brothers.  
Freya leans into my shoulder. "Maybe we shouldn't take this lightly, Rebekah. If the Strix and Lucien had plans for her in the first place, she's a factor of the prophecy. Now, somebody did kill her, what if it was the Murder, after all? If they were supposed to kill her when that baby was born—"  
Elijah interrupts her, "They couldn't have, the child didn't make it, either. And Celeste was the only Seraph for miles at the time; Jezebel put an end to that fairly quickly."  
Klaus is at a loss for words, a rarity if I ever saw one. His eyes down, his mouth parted and sickened.  
"...Elijah—" He tries to reach out.  
Elijah stops Klaus with a somber hand outstretched from across the table, the other hand in Elijah's pocket to make him seem more adjusted than he truly is to the truth. "It doesn't matter who's to blame for this. Jezebel kept quiet and that is why she is gone today. Let's just get through this petty puzzle, and stop an unavoidable threat. The Strix will be glad to have a bit of time to gather up a strategy before the angel of chaos returns."

**MARCEL**

"You know, I never liked churches. They're full of fables. Guardian angels, patron saints... But cemeteries, cemeteries I don't detest. They prove not one of those things can save you from the inevitable," Tristan states.  
Vincent gave me the call, but apparently I wasn't the only one. Tristan makes himself comfortable in Vincent's peaceful presence, over an array of various candles, dried flowers, and relics. He comes down off the steep stairway to the Ancestral Mausoleum, walking towards Tristan and his posse.  
"I hear the Strix has been watching me. Somebody keeps telling the witches about my relationship to Jezebel. Well, let me save you the trouble, I'm no easy target for you to manipulate. And I'm sick and tired of the _trash_ the Originals bring to town. Now, normal people can't get one over on vampires, but for hell's sake, I will. You can keep your eyes on me all you like, but I'm looking right back at you," Vincent asserts, adjusting the crooked of Tristan's designer tie.  
Tristan's buddies nearly step up to his defense, but he wards them off with a single hand.  
"A frenzied witch without a fear of vampires. You are one in a million, my friend. Just remember: knowledge is power. You cannot defy what you do not know," cryptically, Tristan gives his goodbye.  
My foot stomps back on the gravel of the cemetery floor when Vincent mirages behind them, awaiting their undivided gaze.  
His eyes glimmer with a violent grey, pupiless and silvered like empty spoons.  
"The outlook is mutual," a vibrantly multitoned voice spills from Vincent's mouth.  
I'm watching a light show of blazing fires, like tall trees collapsing from a wildfire. Tristan and his boys glow an icy white as they fall to ashes, Vincent walking through their particles and irritably twitching in his head as he walks on through the rows of ancestors who gave him way to do it.  
My breast thumps rapidly and I find the next five minutes filled with a strange, immovable silence. I just watched a nine-hundred-year-old vampire die—and not return.


	9. Atonahui

**REBEKAH**

_October 27th( 5 days before )_

Every time I saw a woman with a swollen belly, she was glowing. She was happy though she spoke with exhaustion in her voice. She was proud of the moment she was living. I coveted to be like them someday, though, I forgot what such an event looked like behind closed doors. When Jezebel answered to my insistent knocking that morning, she looked as though she'd been dragged back from the grave. The dark circles under her eyes were prominent, she wouldn't let go of the door itself, and she looked like she'd contracted something contagious. She was the anti to every symptom of a happily expectant mother.  
"Rebekah," she named me, slightly bewildered by my visit.  
"Nik told me. About the baby," I swallowed guiltily. "Why didn't you stop me?"  
"I didn't have to," she shrugged her shoulders without cause.  
"Right, because you had laced yourself with a poisonous plant."  
Her eyes jetted out to the side for a brief second. "Not exactly."  
"How obtuse can you be? You're responsible for a whole other life inside you!" I nagged her.  
That ashy radiance of death faded away, cheeks warming up and neck pink in color as she raised her voice. "Why does everyone think this is a gift, that it's what I want!"  
Her hands stiffly crinkled like a crow's talons as she spoke.  
I started to feel thankful things fell through with Nik when they did. It came off as though she was not able to think ahead.  
I projected onto her, "Because why wouldn't you? You have this...wonderful ability that is more rare than you think...an ability most girls would kill for."  
Jezebel withdrew her outburst, as if taking back her emotions from her words would change things.  
"And it's something I'm glad to be capable of, but the circumstances are far from being fair," she huffed.  
"Of course, they aren't. It's never going to be fair. But you would prepare, anyway. Nik arranged a ship to come for you. Only you. Why didn't you get on it?"  
"I never asked him to do that."  
"That isn't what I put up for debate." I fold my arms, taking off my gloves with my underarms as they turn clammy in the Louisiana heat.  
"I'm not sure I'll find what I want to find. And if death is certain either way, why should I go? Why should I risk dying a disgrace?" She reasoned.  
"You don't know that," I pushed.  
"I do. The baby's going to kill me. That's not fear talking. It's legacy." Her head shook in micro-patterns of anxiety. "I was a stillborn. The only reason I'm alive is because my mother gave me her magic to live. I'm not so sure she wanted to, but it happened. And because of it, I'm miserable."  
That confirmed it. She was a witch. That's how she figured the child would destroy her. I didn't blame her for holding this information hostage from my brother.  
Instead, I sought to console her. "Our mother. She was the strongest witch of her time, now the oldest. She would have done anything for us to live...even turn us into beasts. But she wouldn't have had it any other way, no matter how much we hate her for it or wished her gone. She'd never trade us away."  
"...What did you say?" Her brows perked up.  
"Good God, you are scatterbrained—"  
"Trade, you said," her pretty finger limply moves toward my chest. "I could trade it."  
"Are you insane?" I howled.  
"Someone else could carry it, I've seen it happen!" She lowered her voice as if it were a big secret.  
My brows forced the thick skin above my nose's bridge downward. "What are you saying?"  
She launched herself into a rabbit hole of deep thought. If I didn't dig her out soon, I'd get no answer.  
"Jezebel!" I hissed.  
"There's a myth I've heard once. _Atonahui_. An epidemic tale that happens in the Spring. It has roots in witchcraft, where nature may select an undeserving host and transfer her fertility unto a barren body. If I could remember it, recreate it—I wouldn't have to carry it. Chances are I could give it a new host," she proposed.  
Chances be emphasized. She was only speaking of speculation!  
"It's going to have to settle for being an experiment, not a spell," Jezebel thought to herself. "Rebekah, do you know any vampire who would host a witch child?"  
She seduced me with the idea faster than I could call doubt to it. How would she even begin to create the spell, let alone have an idea of what to use? God forbid, she would cut it out of herself and reattach to somebody with a record for disaster. But I wasn't a disaster. I was lovelorn, stuck, frustrated, in need of change! Bloody hell, I couldn't possible be considering that she commence her trials on me... That glow. The perfectly protrusion of new life bringing smiles to everyone's face, to mine. Helping this poor girl...who knew not what was good for her. What did I have to lose? I couldn't be killed...but I could be disappointed.  
"Me," hesitant, I answered her call for audition. "If you're going to do this...You should perform it on someone who you know can care for it. And I can. I volunteer."

**JEZEBEL**

_November 1st_

I let my barrier-giving hand down, watching Klaus respond with a twitch to a disappearing wave of hot, solid air.  
"You're going to give it to Rebekah," Klaus detected.  
I bowed my head at the floor, sliding the metal ring on and off of my middle left finger.  
"She agreed on tomorrow night," I told him nervously.  
"Tomorrow night?"  
My eyes clung to the cherub carving above the doorframe he stood beneath. "I found out a week ago that I am on the verge of an abruption. I don't want to kill it, I just can't afford to let it stay. I'm going to try to transfer the pregnancy with a ritual."  
Unsure of me, he kept himself at an angle of turning away, his right arm closer to facing me than his head. I knew Klaus disliked witch kind, and it made it hard to tell him before. It certainly didn't help learning exactly how many secrets I'd been keeping while I was accepting his affectionate gestures. How could I think bad of him for judging me now?  
I tried to soften the blow of information, "I'm not exactly educated in my own domain of magic. A majority of it has been dormant for some time. I don't even know if I can complete anything this lifechanging. Rebekah seemed happy to do it, and...I promise it won't harm her."  
He still continued to turn away from me once I'd brought my magical barrier down.  
"I wish I'd told you before, Nik. I was only thinking about myself when I didn't," I regretted.  
He clung to the back of the satin chair, facing the next room's window.  
"What will you tell her if it doesn't work?" He spoke in a low voice with his back to me.  
I dropped my restless hands at my sides and listened to the mute drop in my elbows.  
"...If it doesn't work, I will keep trying. I can't die yet," I swore.  
Klaus protested, still turned away, "You don't know if it will kill you, you're speculating."  
"I have a guarantee of it, believe me. There's less than a few months to calculate this. If I'm out of nature's good fortune, then... I want you to be the last person to see this."  
He shifted his weight to his far foot, looking at me out of the corner of his eye. I held out my hand.  
I invited, "Come in."  
We were a soundless pair of bodies wandering towards the back of the house, occasionally looking behind me to see if he was still following even though I could feel his hand still locked around two of my fingers.  
The Millers had a spare bedroom without much in it. There was a cot, a broken one; a nightstand, and a set of drawers. The walls were unfinished and made of white-fabric over wood, with poor abilities to keep out the cold at night. But it was cold enough that it could sustain my work. The drew with charcoal, the smoothest thing to pass over the frigid surfaces of striped wallpaper.  
It was a beach with high tides and canyon-like hills ending to punctuate its outstretched sands on one side. In front of it was a palm tree grove that was so dense anyone could get lost in it. Winged monsters were falling from the sky, crashing into the sea, the chapel and homes in the distance, into the rocky terrains and leafy canopies.  
"You did this?" I was surprised to see Klaus breathless.  
"You told me to draw whatever I wanted. You never said where," I muttered. "This is everything I remember. The last thing before I went to sleep and when I woke up again. I know that this is where I was before, but...it isn't familiar when I look at it. Just like the faces on the angels. It feels like I'm one of them and I don't realize."  
He ran his fingers along the fine lines that had tormented me all the night long, and where I held my gaslight too close to the wall and put pale orange marks into its surface. I turned the burns into balconies cut off from the houses that ran alongside the imitative paradise.  
"You have a gift for bluffing. I could have never guessed a girl who quit art so early in her career to make something of this measure," he complimented.  
Not quite. It was safe enough by then to tell him the truth. "I had no plan for what would come after university. I just wanted to be something useful to the planet. My favorite thing to paint was the anatomy of dreams. I didn't finish because I chose something different. It was something I thought was right because it was right for everyone, even if not for myself. When my father became an alcoholic, I stopped going to classes to take care of him and take over his militia. But when I took over, that's when it became a wilderness, a war zone."  
I wiped away the smudge of a pitfalling, amputated angel wing.  
I continued on, "When you told me to draw you something, I chose my wilderness. The one I adjusted to, just like you adjusted to New Orleans. And I can't help but think...this is no dream but a memory. Some people aren't meant to have as much power as they'd like."  
"Some people isn't exactly a vague term you're using. You mean me," Klaus grumbles, rolling his head back to look at me and cast shame.  
I looked back at him, a short hum vibrating inside my closed mouth when he expects me to correct myself.  
I told him, "I've only seen what you want me to see when you're in charge. The wilderness is only a wilderness when you treat others like animals. You love this place, Nik, I know it. There's the difference. I didn't love my home enough. If you don't step back once in a while, you will be where I am now. Wishing I had another chance."  
He shakes his head of overgrown blond waves, looking back at my mural. He'd probably heard it a hundred times before, just with different choices of words. "How do you expect me to change? That's the whole point of this, is it not? Wanting a man to change for you?"  
I sat down on the small cot in the room and started to unlace my brother's worn-out boots, asking Nik, "How did you find this place? New Orleans?"  
He turned to face me, though his eyes went outside to the colossal ceibo tree facing my window. "Escaping our father. It's the first place we docked after a long journey from Europe. We had to leave everything behind," Klaus answered me.  
"And did you know how to navigate it when you first landed?" I questioned again.  
"Of course not. That's the whole point of a new world."  
"Then, you asked others for help?"  
His eyes went to the ceiling, nonchalantly recalling, "More similarly, I compelled the help."  
After removing my last shoe, I stood up to go and put them on the other side of the room.  
"But you needed help. And because you sought it out, now you know it better than anyone else. You care about it. And you didn't have to change whatsoever," I pointed out.  
I turned back to him, making an expression at him as though I expected him to rebuttal. Klaus broke out of his solemn staring and began to grin at the floor.  
"I knew there was a reason I liked you so much," he said, stepping towards me. "I can't get you to hate me no matter what I do."  
I smiled empathetically, "I'm not sure I have the time to hate anyone. No matter how spoiled or hotheaded."  
A vague gleam of pride swept over his as he regained his straight posture. His hand was startlingly cold when it took the back of mine in his. He put the baby blanket back in it.  
"Keep it. If divine plans change," he said to me. "And if you're so concerned about my many gifts, perhaps, reciprocation is in order."  
"Like what?" I replied.  
"Perhaps, the next thing you create can be on paper. An original just for me."  
"We'll see if you can earn one," I joked.  
He squeezed my shoulder and drifted past, back out into the main house. I listened to the last of his footsteps from across the house leave out the back door of the kitchen, down the creaking steps and one last step into the grass of the house's backside. Even by the time every trace of him had vanished, the blushing sensation he left all over my face remained long past the early afternoon.

**REBEKAH**

_November 2nd_

The facepaint is precise. Square, cloud-like structures imprinted on her temples with tails that meet the outer corners of her lashes. On her forehead, two prominent drawings of fangs on a spotted half-moon draw attention to the miniature sun between her thick tarantula brows. Her fingertips are stained with red clay and a big red mouth and a colossal seeing eye has been carved into each of her palms.  
The night was humid and smog-ridden. Not a gleam of sweat fell on my brow like it did Jezebel; she had more to lose than I did, but my hopes were running far higher. "Are you sure this will work?"  
With a stiff back and strut, she picks up the burgundy petticoat as our bare feet meet the mud just before the mouth of the bayou's bog.  
"No. I'm not," she swallowed.  
I could hear her pause of breath, every prayer tied into it so that she might be free again. I began to wonder if it was freedom she was so desperately fighting to take back. I'd never seen some go through this much trouble just for a bit of freedom from responsibility or a difficult time.  
We stopped on the border of swampy green water, and where we were destined to get sick or eaten by what the murky surface hid.  
"No," I denied. "No, we're not going in there."  
"That water can hold sustainable life just like any ocean. And there is no ocean, no lakes to do this here," she told me.  
She took off her flat, cowhide boots. I looked out onto the whispering ripple-tides, where the imprint of the moon's shadow reflected brightly with patience.  
She held out her hand to me, head turned away.  
"Unless you want to stop here," she tempted.  
It was too dark and far to turn around just to stare at a swamp. She set down a foul-smelling vase she'd been carrying with her the entire time, reaching in and ringing something out. It was a human tongue.  
"Close your eyes, it'll be easier," she promised.  
She held it at my mouth's level, as if to feed it to me. I shot her an appalled glance. Vampires can withstand human hearts, but none go as far as bloodless organs.  
"The baby needs a voice, a stomach, a retainable system. The tongue is the first thing it will use for all this," Jezebel exaplained to me.  
Closing my eyes slightly, her apologetic glance was the last thing I saw before the meaty and damp instrument kissed me without my consent. I didn't chew, I only swallowed, coughing loudly.  
Holding our guiding light above her head, she began her way into the bog and I was fated to follow. Her drizzled locks met the growling body of water, her voice so shaky, I could hear it amplify as her chin came closer and closer to its green color. "Right here."  
The flame was hushed jezebel's left palm, which made her hiss. Then, it met her right palm, a sensation she'd adjusted to by that time. My body mirrored her stinging pain and made my palms twitched. I forgot about the wretched sound fire made on flesh.  
The driftwood handle of the torch relinquished to its anti element, where Jezebel disappeared below the surface with it. I counted five seconds until she returned, dripping wet. Her facepaint had washed away, but her bloody palm still dripped orange. One of them now held a ball of solid mud, which she quickly lit on fire.  
"You have to be ready," she quickly commanded of me.  
I realized she meant for me to lay back in the gutter water. As I relaxed backward into the lukewarm water, she began to speak a language far from her native Spanish and secondary English.  
Nothing is happening, and our eyes meet. Are we even doing this correctly, we both seemed to wonder? But Jezebel was reluctant to stop there. She squeezed the fiery ball of mud tighter in her infected, cut up hands and chanted louder. The ball commenced a glowing crimson light, forging in her folding hands as she kept going.  
"Meztli de mi luna, traenos vida," was the only thing I could understand.  
All falls silent, and I gasp loudly as the moon disappears. All the stars go with. A looming cloud, bigger than any eclipse or imposing galaxy, had passed over the moon and turned it a brilliant gold. Something tickles my foot, and I see Jezebel's head twitch nervously.  
"Oh...Jezebel," I worried.  
Looking around, five bumpy heads with glowing golden eyes circle us like hawks. They moan, grumble, take turns swimming between my flattened position and her standing point.  
The intruding reptiles are not what bothered her. It was the beating noise. The beating noise of a heart.  
Jezebel opened her shaking hands, shocked by what she witnesses. The clay-made heart has begun to beat.  
"Bloody hell," I swore, stunned.  
The moon was losing its color, making Jezebel scramble for her last ingredient.  
"No..." she huffed.  
"What?" I snapped.  
"No...I dropped it," she cried.  
"Dropped it? Jezebel! What is it!"  
She folded the heart in my hands without further explication and dove below the surface of circling fiends. They were going to strike any second now, I knew, especially with a freshly exposed organ beating in my hands.  
Something broke the surface. It was a dead fish. Two more. Five more. Six—  
My stomach experienced a sharp sting, and I beckoned my chin to my chest to see if the crocodiles had taken their first bite. It was Jezebel's hand, wrapped around a human bone. It was flattened and sharp, fashioned into a poorly crafted blade. She pulled it forward and ripped open the entirety of flesh in my abdomen. I called out in pain from the unexpected ambush just as her eyes broke the surface, seeming just as untrustworthy as our audience. She caught the heart before my twitched arm could fling it off into the water. Jezebel shoved it into my squealing and massacred gut, watching the golden light of the moon die once again and take hounds of other fish specie with it. The crocodiles disappear below the surface as morning breaks faster than it left the day before.  
I coughed blood to the side, listening to it gurgle in my throat as Jezebel started to drag me back to the muddy land.  
Taking up the bone-shaped blade once more, she uses it to make her palms bleed a little harder. It dripped off into the dirt where she urged it downward with a smushing, swerving motion. To my surprise it wasn't for the mud's doubtful healing purposes. One bright red flower began to spring from the ground. Metaphysically tripling by saplings at the core of their thick cone petals, Jezebel cut the stem and crushed the plant up in her grip, pressing down into my belly's incision.  
I sat up with her help, pulling apart the broken fabric over my stomach to see all had completely healed. The clay heart churned in my stomach like a rock or too much cuisine.  
"It worked," I theorized.  
"We'll know. The clay will grow and form a human made with all the elements. The same as any other child," she panted.

**JEZEBEL**

_November 7th_

In order for a life to commence, one needs to be taken. That is the business venture of Death. Somewhere else, someone dies and at the same second, life is given to someone brand new or who isn't out of chances just yet. But when you will this cycle to happen on your command, Death does things differently. To have the heart to give, you have to have taken something; and vice versa. This is an old Juchitana proverb from the horrific stories in my father's journals. He gave witness to it in action and he heard the cries for forgiveness and help overlap with one another.  
For a fertility spell, it is no different. That is why I spiraled in guilt after the ritual, and why Rebekah was never meant to know the similarity between Azatli shamanism and natural witchcraft.  
He was the first thing I saw, the only human being vulnerable enough to not remember what I tried to do if I had let him escape.  
"..._I lament to tell you my father has evacuated me to the Tuscany early in the season for school due to a threat to our income and safety in New Orleans. I will write you as soon as I arrive. All my love, Emil_," Rebekah read aloud to Klaus and I.  
She met her brother's gaze with a suspicious and disappointed glower, to which Klaus removed his hands from his coat to prove they were clean of random bloodshed.  
"It wasn't me," Klaus swore.  
Her shoulders dramatically slumped, tossing the letter aside. I watched it feather down to the ground nervously, toying with the pendant around my neck.  
"Why would he just leave this and not come to see me first?" Rebekah complained.  
Klaus leaned against the support pillar I had set my back on, patiently waiting for Elijah and Celeste like the two of them.  
Calmly looking over his clean cuticles, Klaus dismissed her qualms, "Who can tell? Perhaps, he's bored of you. Now, can you please stop bellyaching? You're ruining a decent Friday night for the rest of us."  
I hit him in the back to make him stop.  
"There's a reason for everything, maybe this is a chance to explore your other options, is what your brother means," I corrected him.  
Klaus lowers his head towards me while my white tongue rolls across my teeth in a closed mouth.  
"Just because she's my sister, doesn't mean you owe her any sensitivity. Let her know the truth, it's better that way," he told me.  
"And the truth was he didn't love me enough, you think?" She rebuttaled, testing Nik.  
I saw Klaus open his mouth and immediately stopped him. "Are you really going to answer her?"  
His eyes fell on my raised brows, waiting for a blow between siblings. That's when Elijah enters, Celeste at his side. I've avoided her for as long as could, and right off, I knew her unpleasant stare was the beginning of a war between us if there wasn't one already.  
"Let's try to start the night off quieter than it began. Shall we?" Elijah seconded my notion.  
Celeste's head craned and turned like an owl to make sure I didn't take Klaus ahead of her queenly step. Rebekah followed them.  
"You're absolutely certain Celeste can't translate it for you?" I slowly blink against the rushes of irritation flowing through my system.  
Klaus answered me, "Oh, I'm afraid you're not getting out of this. The twice-nominated play of the Madridian Theatre League comes to New Orleans and in the case of Celeste, I'm not one for asking favors."  
He took my hand to put my arm through his, leading me down the path made by the others out the front door.  
I was going to try to make the best of the evening he invited me to. I did like some of Maleto's plays, even if I grew up in a region where his topics weren't safe enough to permit his performances. Klaus really wanted to spend his time with me, and I thought it was about time I allowed myself to indulge in it. I deserved a little normalcy in my world, even if I didn't exactly know how to reciprocate his doubling advances. I'd never liked someone before—at least, not a man. Never been in love or been kissed, as far as I knew. I had no interest in it until now, when I was physically looking for ways to distract myself from the problems right in front of me.  
It might have been a plus that Celeste couldn't stand me physically going against her request of me to stay away. I knew all her secrets and if I spilled them to the right person, she'd be done for—supposedly. But so would I.  
Rebekah had already started rejecting alcohol. No results or symptoms had become of her just yet, but she wanted to refrain from tarnishing her chances. I watched employee after employee attempt to serve her a clear glass of pale golden drink, only to have her push back the tray with a satin red glove. I take one for myself, only to have Rebekah remove it from my hand and give it to a passerby.  
"_Jode_," I swore at her.  
"Just because you haven't felt any movement in the last few days, doesn't mean there's no bun in the oven," Rebekah reprimanded.  
I shook my head, subduing the urge to sock myself in the stomach to prove it to her.  
"You haven't had any sickness yet? No markings or cravings?" I huffed quietly, watching Celeste and making sure she wasn't listening in.  
"Not yet," Rebekah lamented to me.  
My eyes wandered over to Klaus, who had stepped away to see an old friend who had been wanting his attention since he arrives. He wasn't strongly enthused by the conversation, his eyes on me and refusing to break contact with me.  
"He talks about you," Rebekah spoke on Klaus's behalf.  
Half-listening, I mumbled, "Who?"  
"Who else but my brother?"  
"Should I be flattered?" I distantly asked.  
"Good God, you're clueless," she scorned me.  
I gestured at the door so she could find it if I displeased her, taking a second glass of champagne from the table.  
She took it back immediately, setting it where I found it.  
Remorsed she, "Sorry. Force of habit to be a little hard on the girls who come around my brothers."  
"It's fine. Sometimes, I think so, too," I anointed her apology.  
Rebekah fixed her earring, insincerely toying with a handsome young boy's gaze from across the room as she spoke with me. "It's a positive thing, Jezebel. He talks about how smart you are, how dedicated and unbothered you are. He's given us a lot of hope. Because he's found something...uncomplicated to do with his time for once."  
"I like your brother, Rebekah, but I think he's making the decisions in terms of his behavior. It's got nothing to do with me," I responded.  
Rebekah drew in closer, equipped with a tone of warning. "I hope this isn't all charades. You hold a lot of credibility with him, especially for an former threat."  
As Rebekah brushed past to meet the boy halfway to the center of the room, I found a tall man, not much older than Niklaus or Elijah in appearance, watching me from the annex area of the playhouse. Was he a friend of Rebekah's admirer? No, he was alone. His dark curly hair seemed familiar, as did his dark and dwelling brown eyes. He had a shadow, one like Niklaus's, that highlighted his deadpan smolder in relation to my equally dead line of staring.  
The lights dimmed and everyone started to move toward the doors behind me to find their seats. I began to leer around for the stranger again, but he and his velvety purple evening wear have already vanished.  
Klaus surprised me by placing his arm around the back of my neck, taking in my concerned expression.  
"Everything alright, love?" he quietly wondered.  
I nodded, my head still rotating as if on a carousel, looking for what I now knew was just a mirage.  
Reniego. The oldest series I can think of, wherein which the woman is a savior until her innocence gets in the way. It's like that for almost every new chapter. Womankind versus monsters, against friends, against men. Not boring, but not uplifting for any woman in the room, either.  
I'd slumped in my seat in the very back of the balcony with Nik, my right shoulder leaning into his where I had an absence of an armrest.  
I hadn't looked at the stage all but the first five minutes. Celeste sat merrily in the front, letting Elijah whisper and distract and tease her against the current by which we voluntarily came. Rebekah had attracted the attention of other noblewomen in her row. No point in looking for the voyeur from before. If purple was the color of wealth, that's all I was seeing that night.  
"She does it to every woman she finds vaguely threatening," Klaus snidely whispered to me.  
Mistakenly thinking he was talking about the events onstage, I murmured back, "Her mother was a traitor. She gave her sister to the count. The creole girl can't do much in terms of the army he has behind him."  
The actress, dressed to annul the indiginenois identity of her role, made a loud thump in the stage with her knees while she wailed for her life.  
"Rebekah isn't as supportive as she appears. She's quite the hypocrite when it comes to our independent affairs," Klaus quietly said back.  
I leaned the side of my face on my first, remaining facing forward. "It doesn't bother me."  
He glanced down at his brother gawking at the pretty head of curly black hair, the one Elijah was whispering all his secrets to and molesting the ring on her finger.  
Klaus admitted, "She is right on occasion. The times when I manage to find something worth focusing on, I can manage to be a gentlemen."  
"Nik, be honest about something. Are you after more than my friendship?" overlapping with his his claims, I demanded.  
"I've been as obvious as I can be."  
"What does that mean to you? Do you care about me or am I a craving?"  
I turned my head leaving our faces within a close proximity. The curves between his brows dissipated, the resting frown on his lips upending into a neutral look of dismay or of anxiety.  
He told me, "It means you are irresistible. Brilliant, tender, enduring... And all those things are incredulously dangerous to be, but you do it well."  
That was enough to make my body turn achy and fragile from flattery, but I wasn't that easily fooled.  
"That doesn't answer my question," I breathed out.  
Where I thought there couldn't be any less room between us, he sought to prove me wrong. Turning towards me in his seat, our arms pressing against each other where we'd each crossed them on the armrests of our adjacent seats.  
He confessed, "You had traumas on your feet, in your eyes, lacerations in your purpose when I met you. You didn't use any of them for revenge or for alterior motives. And in most I've fallen for, that is all they have to give me in the end. You treat me, my family like you've known us all your life. I didn't invite you here because I need translation; I can leave a critical review by the little Castilian dialect I've acquired. I can only promise you that I'm not able to let you pass me by. I have to know about this feeling you give me."  
He was doing his best to tell me how he felt; and I couldn't pretend that didn't count as an answer. He was confused about me, maybe still suspicious. Intrigued, nonetheless, but...not in love or in lust.  
"You don't trust me," I interpreted.  
I must have been right to think so. He wanted to deny it and his lips restrictively moved without sound when he just couldn't. I didn't blame him; he made me anxious just as well. It didn't stop my heart from beating fast when he looked at me or the hairs on the back of my neck being vertical when he touched me; and all the other cliché things people talk about when they say they're falling for somebody. I had to show some patience where I was starting to have little.  
My hand crossed over his, stacking on top of each other. I selected his topmost hand and squeezed it between mine. "That's okay. I'm not going anywhere."

**KLAUS**

The stairwell was narrow and offered little light under the vigilance of a bright red and amber stained glass window that remained from the playhouse's days as a chapel. She waited for me at the bottom of the staircase down from the highest view of the stage, back against wooden trimmings below the broken sconces. My thumb crossed under the spidery thin lashes of her bottom lid, creeping downwards toward the left half of her full bottom lip. I drew into her and pressed the dark grey fabrics on her torso towards me. She hovered her nose to the side of mine, leaning herself into my kiss. My stomach curled like her lashes upon my cheeks, her racing heartbeat in her palms as they touch my neck and the thin clothing between the bare skin over my heart and. My longer fingertips creeping just behind her ear to keep away the intrusive and long struggles of hair on her temples. Her short rush of breath spurs the excitement I'd gained from just one kiss, and I protect the back of her head with my hand as I drive her into the fleur de lis wall groomings behind us, grabbing at her waist upper back. Time fleets from my count the longer I spend inhaling her smell of wisteria and spices, indulging in her sapid taste.  
I felt the simper in her nasal exhale on my ear when I discovered a sensitive spot just behind her ear, the sound of immense clapping coming from across the threshold we had poorly hid ourselves in.  
"They're eventually going to all leave that theatre at once, we're going to get trampled," I felt her voice vibrated in her cotton throat.  
Repositioning my face in front of hers, I moved the dense, disheveled braid off her freckled collarbone, sliding the gap of my thumb and index into the side of her throat.  
"Just a few more seconds before we're rudely interrupted," as I saw it.  
She smiled, kissing the corner of my mouth gently, fixing the uppermost red button of my shirt that had been unable to stay interlocked with the opposing side of black-seam openings. "I guess I'm not the only one who needs to work on the virtue of patience," Jezebel remarked gently.  
Putting a hand behind my shoulder, she nodded her head towards the descending staircase to meet my siblings in the lobby. Not quite finished with her, I pulled her back a step and gave her one more kiss.  
"Can we finish this later, at least?" I pleaded.  
"We'll see," she mumbled against the flesh of my cheek.  
No one seemed to be coming out of the auditorium since the clapping had begun. It had been almost an entire two minutes.  
Jezebel and I acknowledged the closed doors and lack of attendants with an exchange of suspicions. She pushed open the door, entering with me to find out what the prolonged fuss had become. The entire room was on their feet in front of their dirty velvet seats, putting their clashed sets of hands together until their palms were red and irritated. I knew the infinite feeling that came with it. I kept counting to ten in my mind, waiting for it to stop. I counted seven times. "The audience is being compelled," I declared.  
"By who?" Jezebel tried to beat the volume of the noise.  
"Kol!" I heard my sister shriek from above.  
My eyes darted toward the stage, the most prominent place everyone had trained their eyes. The very cause was there in a prop coffin. A brown-haired boy with a pale grey face and decaying face, bringing the role of a fictional corpse to life. It was Kol.

**ELIJAH**

_November 10th_

The house fell to shambles overnight.  
There was no message, no culprit attached to the mocking display. There was only one rejoinder to this; one with a masterful source. It had to be Mikael. He'd found us, we had been preparing for it since the day our stolen vessel swam into the French colony's harbor. But how was it that this time...we had become so disheveled we'd forgotten our plans? Klaus wanted to abandon all hope here, Rebekah wanted to stay and get her revenge; I could only aspire that whatever we did, we did it alive and together.  
We would take care of Kol first. We still couldn't agree on a burial. Kol was a pain, a gifted witch, and an utterly ludicrous card to keep around. We didn't desire his untimely demise...but a part of me still pondered if it had been for good reason. I'd dare not say it aloud, though, it was certainly on the tip of Klaus and I's tongue.  
After three days of her silent grievance and isolation, I decided to bother Rebekah on the matter. I no longer wished to have my morning drink accompanied by the lingering smell of my rotting brother through the first and second story parlors.  
I had knocked on her door three times that morning. I was informed about the ritualistic attempts Jezebel had performed on our sister. She'd seen no results, which had to make this week the most agonizing of all in her centuries of life. God forbid it was for nothing. I don't know how well we would prepare for her pregnancy, especially on the grounds that none of us had experience with children. I was getting ahead of myself. Jezebel told Rebekah it would take time to see a result, and judging by the dwindling down of Rebekah's mood...the attempt proved useless.  
"Rebekah you'll eventually have to start your day. Niklaus has finally come downstairs. Leave him be any longer, he will take out his grievous hunger pains on the bulging vein on the last of the servants who still have a neck," I tried to rouse her from her quiet.  
I heard nothing but the sparrows flying outside her window.  
I risked trespassing into her domain for her health's sake, and I pushed open her squeaking French door. "Rebekah, I know how strenuous this is. Kol would have loved to endure this wait with his little sister. But perhaps we should talk about—"  
I found her sitting on her knees in front of her chambre-leur mirror beside her bed. Tears had fallen down her face, yes, but not out of grief.  
Her stomach was so swollen it had nearly bursted right through the sheer fabric of her silken nightgown.  
She looked back at me.  
"We need to fix that door. It will wake the baby someday," she sniffed excitedly.  
Getting to her feet, my heart leapt out of my chest as we embraced and quietly celebrated what I had secretly wished would come true for her.  
"I can't gather it!" breathlessly, I rejoiced. "You?"  
For the first time in three days, I'd forgotten all about our loss.  
Rebekah nodded her head, her curly head of frizzed hair come straight from her pillow. "Jezebel. She did it. She's coming this morning to see Nik. I have to show her—"  
Celeste appeared in the doorway, dressed for slumber just like Rebekah. "She did what?"  
"She gave me a gift. She's given me a child. This is—"  
Rebekah's happy face is met with Celeste's stony mood. "—Forbidden. There is no known method to safely transfer a child, not even by witches. Not yet. For all we know, you could be giving birth to parts of a child, not a living fetus."  
I didn't want Rebekah to have cause for distress. Nevertheless, we'd find a way to check on it and ensure its health. I pulled away my sister heavy flyaways, matted by tears, from her glowing face.  
"I'll have Regina bring you breakfast. We'll celebrate tonight," I offered.  
I gestured for Celeste to follow me to give the orders to the kitchen.  
As we walked in an insufferable silence, Celeste's reflection on the marble wall crossed at the arms and heavy-footed. I turned to her, pulling her aside.  
"My sister is felicitous today of all days. Why sour her mood? What is it about Jezebel you don't trust?" hushed, I demanded to know.  
My fiancée licked her lips, pulling my two-times-larger robe tighter around her body. "I was involved with her mother's coven. And if the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, Jezebel Zaragoza will prove to be just as dangerous. I think your brother has found his match; I intend no humor in that!"  
We waited for one of our servants to pass by before continuing.  
Whispered Celeste, violently, "Chance on it. She found the ring that belonged to Kol, the Millers who so graciously let her into their care are dead, and all of a sudden, she wants to be rid of a pregnancy she never saw anyone about, let alone thought to get rid of herself. Why do you think that all is? Because vengeance is more potent than letting a mistake go. That's all it was. Ambushing her on that pier was a mistake!"  
"You think she wants to get back at us," I annotated. "Darling, you're paranoid. And if need be, I will go to the girl myself and warn her of her actions. I will."  
Immediately panicked by the thought, Celeste began to shake her head. "I won't put you in her way. I will handle it. The last thing your family needs is the stress of losing another member. Be it one of you or that baby."  
Delicately, I wrapped my arms around her back to pull her closer to me, tracing them up and onto her young cheeks and corrected her, "Our family."  
She smiled, surrendering her head towards my chest so I could kiss it.

**KLAUS**

Ill matrimony, death, Mikael—everything that could have taken an entire year to unfold happened in a span of two months. I had no control over what to think or do—so little I no longer had a bedroom but piles of rubble, smashed canvases, and spilled liquor. Running was ideal; we'd done it before and made homes elsewhere that would never misremember us. But as the world lusted to make a poorly-timed fool of me, my sister's womb took to the spell much easier than anticipated. We couldn't stay and fight, nor did we have time to compel someone to take our namesakes. Perhaps, we best blow this place to smytherines ourselves... If we did that, there'd be no one to warn Jezebel, either. I'd warned her of Mikael, but her ability to take a warning was insufficient. She'd insist on wanting to help if I told her anything about the potential cause of Kol's death being my father.  
Regardless of how indecisive I was about her, she was faultless to me; a life made of sterling that was worth saving.  
There was only one thing I could do for her by that point.  
My bedroom door, the most silent door in the house, closed without even a noisy breeze. It was Jezebel's footsteps that were easiest to recognize.  
"Before you tell me to leave, I want to ask if there's anything I can do," she announced herself.  
"What makes you think I'll ask you to leave?" Turning my head slightly, her blurry image of brunette and blacks grew closer.  
Jezebel sat next to me on my bedside and pretended as if she didn't see the splintered wood and broken pieces of home all around us "Because I know you, and you are a silent sufferer."  
In my hands, I held the greatest gift I'd ever received from Kol.  
She waited for me to speak, her long hair—without its usual braided fashion—tapping against my forearm as she leaned into my shoulder to look with me.  
"He gave this to me," I told her. "I remember when we were mere children, he at least tried to be like me once. I wanted him to grow separate, to be something more than me. Something Mikael could be proud of that would save him from Mikael's calloused hand. So, I pushed him away as we grew. Before I knew of it, he resented me. He used me for his mistakes and though, I hated him for it, he brought me companionship. Joy. And he promised me before he left New Orleans, that he was doing it for our family. I told him never to come back..."  
"You couldn't...revive him?" graveled in tone, she held.  
"Something infected his blood...some elaborate venom...dark magic. It rendered Kol helpless as he died. Had I been in any better a mood with him when he left, I would have been able to justify him as deserving of it. He hated us all," I lamented.  
Jezebel wouldn't bite on my exaggeration; she tried to focus me elsewhere.  
"Is there a reason he drew a feather?" she wanted to know, arm slipping beneath mine to feel the indentations his harsh flight of charcoal birds took on the right of the page.  
I described, "We could only ever talk about travelling to new worlds together, finally leaving Mikael and our strenuous siblings. The red hawk that lived in the white oak tree beside our home was about to become a mother. Mikael shot it with an arrow upon the post-partum; he used its feather to make more arrows. We assured each other we'd never be that like that pitiable creature."  
She had a gift for asking for things with just her eyes. She urged me with one quiet look of her dark-circled eyes to hold the page. With a risky portion of trust, I let her.  
She smiled at it, and it tempted me to do the same.  
"And you're not," she resolved.  
Her cold hand wrapped around my upper arm to bend it away from my bare chest. "You're the fledgling that survived."  
She mouthed something to the extent of a request for me to watch her. Touching the page to my left breast, I felt a strangely sharp burst of heat and itching on my skin.  
When she pulled the page away, the minute drawing was gone. On my chest, the image of feathered birds flying away from the illusion of a major feathers' bristles still moved as a phantasmagoria would across the projector board of my fair flesh.  
She sympathetically watched it settle like ink into position. "Mira. You still have your feathers. Maybe you aren't even a bird at all. You could be an arrow. You won't know until you come outside. You live another day."  
My fingers graze over the picture, and I'm slightly flattered by its appearance in the mirror. She offers to take it off, but I stop her from doing so. It was a memory that would have faded easily on paper; I'd surely lose it one day.  
"Let me ask you this. Was it that easy when you lost your brother? Matías?" I questioned, guardedly.  
Her kind, empathetic expression decreased in sentiment, hands folding again in her the bright grey lap of her heavy coat. "It's not the same as losing a friend. It's something that dies inside you. A little loss of reassurance. It's hard to adjust, knowing the traditions and conversations you have with your brother aren't going to happen anymore... Nik, I'm so sorry."  
The next time I look at her, the pale brown skin on her cheeks and beneath her eyes are rosy and swollen from the difficult overflow of emotion. She breathed deeply, trying to seem more composed than she was.  
"It's so hard. I'm sorry," she sniffed.  
My hands glided across her cheeks, wiping her gleaming tears until they ran short of a trail near her curly hairline.  
"Hey," I whispered quietly, "You needn't cry. You aren't in the wrong."  
She shook her head, putting a hand over her eyes.  
"It doesn't matter. No one deserves what happened to him. They just left him there..."  
At that moment, I couldn't fathom the line between Kol and her own brother's annihilation. Injustice was fielded in both.  
"Everyone gets their dues, Jezebel. And the person who did this—they will be found. And they will be struck down someday... Which is why you can't be here with me when it happens."  
"What are you talking about?"  
"I care about you, but this is no longer a point where I'm free to act on it. The least I can do is warn you. Now is the time for you to go. Find your family. Before I burn this place to the ground."  
"What? Nik!"  
"You only seek to help, Jezebel. Under any other circumstances you would have luck, but for now, I can't let you be anywhere near me," I denied her advice. "This has all been a reminder of why I stay in my wilderness. Because I have no choice. I created it, I must end it."  
"You're just going to turn back to the beginning because things are hard now?" she tried to hold back a resentful tone.  
"No," I returned harshly, picking up the glass of whiskey that'd I'd stopped from sloping off the broken nightstand with a pair of burnt books. "I'm going to fight back."  
"By destroying your home, abandoning it! How in the hell is that fighting back?"  
Occasionally, Jezebel had no idea when to stop doting on others. From the first day to the very last I spent at her side, she had no sense of where she wasn't needed or wanted. I never considered that it wasn't about me. It was for her own sanity.  
I began to howl, "I don't need critique from the same girl who fled all she knew only to end up in peril over her deserters—"  
Her voice turned colder, more accusatory.  
"Me da igual. Si no te cuidas, lo haré yo. Give that to me." Her arm shoots out at me, demanding to have the crystal glass of whiskey in my hand. When I didn't hand it over, she took it from me, whipping it out to the side and watching it make the fire in my bedroom's mantle throw a fiery tantrum. I got to my feet, because I thought she'd make more of it and throw the glass in with the last batch of my finely aged Bourbon.  
Looking around with a dark, bothered sigh, she decided to ask a sequential task of me. "You can do whatever you like, I'm not leaving now. And clean this up. If you drink any more, you'll hurt yourself in here."  
Shoving the glass back in my hand, she walked past me without a goodbye.  
She was upset with me, even if she understood what I'd been asking me. Be it my drinking or my closed off persona, I didn't want her to lose faith in me or to forget why she came to see me.  
I pulled on her wrist until she was back where she stood before.  
Finishing what I'd started seventy-two hours ago, I gripped her face and bound her into a kiss, moving her restless arms to my chest.  
"If you don't give a damn, why should I?" I scowled.  
I let go of her arms, taking back my glass.  
"I can't protect what only seeks self-destruction."

**JEZEBEL**

I'd been starting to live for the idea I might feel more strongly for Nik than I planned. Enough in under three days that I considered taking him with me once I beat Celeste. His place was clear, and I gave that to him the second I made Kol kill himself.  
I gave Nik his loneliness, his pain. It was absolutely criminal, and eventually, I would cave and tell him everything. There was no point in hiding anything now that he wanted to let me go.  
Celeste turned a sharp, brass-crowned corner of the Mikaelson abattoir, facing me as I slowly adjusted my coat and my countenance. Her lavish clothes spoke of Elijah's taste and reminded me of exactly why I dreaded seeing her in their house.  
She grinned violently at my visible conflictions.  
"You see? It doesn't matter who you hide behind," she began to say to me. "You will die, and you will do so without dragging the rest of your Murder down with you."  
Her spidery fingers wove through my frizzy locks, pulling down on the kinks of my hair atop of my heart. I no longer cared about setting. I grabbed her arms, shoving her back into the wall.  
"Do you still think I'm inclined to listen to you?" I mumbled to her, stepping closer to expose the inch of height I held against her. "I'm free of carrying Carmila now, and I can assure you when she's ready for slaughter, I will be there. Rebekah won't have an inkling, nor her brothers, of her pregnancy because I will make sure they forget. If that's what it takes—if that means I will be the one to walk this earth, free of my mother's curse—I will do it. What do I have to fucking lose?"  
The threat didn't do much for her.  
"Well, of course, someone has to confess to Kol's murder. And then what? The Mikaelsons will have you on the run, and you will drag your family down into it with you for your one mistake. That is, if you still have any family," Celeste taunted me. "Kiss your freedom before it goes. Monsters like you don't get happy endings."  
I simper slightly, a tinge of villainous joy prancing about in my chest.  
"If you see one, then you are one. Lest you forget. There's no rule about using a monster to defeat other monsters," I spat back.  
I pushed back on her shoulders, taking my time as I strolled towards the second story staircase at the end of the hallway.

_November 6th  
(four days before)_

I filled ten buckets with the house's external spout, and by midnight, I was ready. I tore off my clothes one by one, headed for the farmhouse's only washroom. I look over Kol's grimoire one last time before I began. Filling the tub with these buckets, I grab the tin jar of jimson weed I had collected out in the bayou, careful not to have too much contact with it as I crush it all in my hands and release it into the freezing water.  
The only thing left to add was the incantation, not to be spoken, but to be remembered. Lowering myself into the tub, I laid myself to rest beneath the contaminated water.  
When I opened my eyes again, I was in a burnt forest, surrounded by corpses of trees and murders of crows. I did not have to wonder if I had entered the right dream.  
Behind me was a tunnel of twigs and broken black tree bases. I could hear screaming and see Nordic letters dancing on twine from the trees.  
I approached the tunnel, counting each step until I was in complete darkness. Even when I had thought to turn around, I could no longer see light.  
As I walked, I felt things brushing against me; warm, soft, wet, rotten. The entails of the tunnel grew closer and closer until it felt like I was trying to escape a beast's soft intestine. I felt my face and body become wet with the foul-smelling dark and my feet begin to run when something produced a disembodied moan.  
By the time I'd reached the end of this tunnel, I realized I was covered in blood and the twigs had turned to body parts. Nausea overcame me as I reduced myself to a stunned crawl and landed at the soles of someone's shoes.  
"It appears I should have checked twice," the masculine voice spoke to itself.  
When I sat up on my knees, the face of a pale man with dark and long blonde hair held his stake above my head.  
"I have a reason to be spared," I panted fearfully.  
"No invasive creature which leaves that tunnel has a reason to live," he bellowed.  
"My name is Jezebel Zaragoza," I spoke quickly, "My father was Ángel-Lautaro de Tamaonchan. I have reason to believe that—"  
He lowered his weapon immediately, grabbing the fabric on my arms to bring me to standing.  
"You're Carmila's spawn. I know who you are," he drew closer to me. "They say the world quaked when you were born and even your wretched mother drew her greatest pain because of you. Though, you cling to a sort of posture that breeds no more than a shiver."  
"You know her, you know why I am here. I need you to stop her sisterhood before they come to judge the supernatural. Starting with my execution." "Please, I know I have no right to ask, but I need help. I only want what's best for everyone."  
"And you deem what's best to be the ongoing survival of those beasts?"  
"I know your children have scorned you and you, your children. But it isn't about them. It's about the balance that your wife, your family have tried to correct themselves!"  
"When I kill the Murder of Seraphi, it will be on my own accord, not by order of werewolf bastards," he hissed in my face. "And do believe me, I have reason, little one."  
He dropped me on my feet, causing me to nearly lose balance.  
"Then I'll make you."  
"Make me? The Destroyer? You plead insanity!"  
"I need something!" I shrieked angrily. "And I will take it if I have to! I will take what I deserve, I don't care if I have to drag you from this dream realm. You will bow to my will, I am above you! I am a Seraph of the highest order!"  
Mikael spoke, "...Where did you say it was they reside?"  
"A place called New Orleans. It harnesses enough dark magic to disguise their presence."  
"As it would disguise my children's... New Orleans, of course."  
"...Yes." Why did I feel like I'd just made things worse?  
"You drive a point with me. But why nitpick my victims? Should you wish for your livelihood, you best make your escape while you can. Now, get out of my head...witch."  
He lunged at my throat but the mise-en-scene had already changed before he could destroy me in another realm. I looked down at whatever was weighing down my waist and legs and found I was wearing a beautiful white dress—the ones like brides would wear. It was frilled at the top and squeezed me the waist like a top-heavy bush of luxury. My skirt was more subtle than the rest of the fine lace and tulle.  
"_Madre mía, qué pasa? Quién viene? El rey?_" a beloved voice penetrated my dizzy eardrums.  
My brother Matías leaned in the doorway, smiling at me. He was not transparent, he did not fizzle like a figment of my imagination—I could smell his earthy scent from across the room. He was actually here.  
"Matí... Matí!" I breathed in disbelief.  
I could have tipped him over with the strength of my hug, his strong arms crushing me from my lower back.  
"_Me dejaste. Me dejaste tanto tiempo, ¿adónde fuiste?_" I caught myself pitfalling into a breathless sob.  
As he held my arms, he looked at me as if he didn't understand my pain. Did he know he was dead, I wondered? Did he know how we worried about him and prayed we misunderstood the news?  
"_¿Qué quieres decir? Todos te están esperando ahí fuera_," my brother simpered.  
"_¿Qué? Lau, Marco, Tatli_," I frowned, seeking clarification.  
He squeezed my hands, rocking my head side to side playfully like he did when he thought I was acting stupid. "_Sí! ¿Por qué no?_"  
"_¿Están aquí?_" I smiled gullibly.  
He nodded largely when he turned to me, hands in the pockets of his grey uniform pants. He hadn't worn them since the day he left.  
I rushed out of the room, mindlessly, watching the farmhouse turned into a familiar chapel of some kind. Still, I continued to believe in reality while magic fooled the world around me. When I reached the altar, before me I watched my father and brothers Marco and Lau sit on their knees. My dress had turned to a weave of shreds, the boots I loved so much splattered with blood. They did not look at me even when I asked them to.  
"Run! Go!" Involuntarily, I cried out.  
My father's forehead bled, my brothers' necks let their heads slip right off.  
I catapulted from the cold water as I woke from my series of omens, splashing every wall hiding my crime as I frantically screamed into my shaking, frozen hands.


	10. Dark Shadows

**CELESTE**

My finger loosely twists in the air. "You know, the silence...sounds a lot like guilt. Show yourselves."  
The graveyard stays as quiet as its resident dead. Candles are lit, the night is young, and there are little feet running around in the distance waiting for a boogeyman to scare them away.  
"I'm not gonna ask again," I bellow.  
Van reveals himself, ritualistic knife and rabbit in hand.  
"You're kind of a joke now, Vincent. A guy who hasn't done magic for years and is in talks with the enemy? What good will you do us?" Van taunts me.  
I examine my reflection in the side of a newly built white marble pillar acting as a new support for a crumbling archway.  
I exhale heavily, "Well, here's the thing about that. You only stopped 'the enemy' for a short time. Jezebel learns quick, and pretty soon, a loophole will appear and she will return in some form. Where did you think you were going with that, huh?"  
The despicable child paces in serpentine at gradual speed, building up word on the crime he doesn't want to admit to.  
"I encouraged it, I don't take responsibility for it. The ancestors have wanted her gone for decades; they say she is of an advantage that outranks us. She could kill us all. At least somebody had the guts to finish the job," he claims.  
He's hiding something behind his back. I would normally claim he has the wrong girl, but when she goes around inside a man's body, Van is probably well within his right to slay my body of choice.  
Grabbing his armed hand, I pin it back against the door of a nearby crypt and use my free arm to pin his chest down.  
"I don't think you understand what you've condemned your people to, Van," I warn him.  
My eyes burn like hot coals; he sees them, glinting grey off his pupils.  
"You're not Vincent," Van coughs.  
I dropped him to his numb feet, intaking the information I've come into.  
I frown, "You're right, I'm better. Because he was just the Regent."  
I lean over Van, dusting himself off on his knees. "You want to talk about Ancestors, I'm the mouthpiece. Call everyone to the Black Clay Cemetery. Some announcements have to be made."

**AYA**

He's late. How convenient, given he said his news was an emergency. I feel as though I've been waiting for hours; the witches I summoned at his behest are twice as restless.  
I sigh, staring out the window of Marcel Gerard's home base in his absence. Perhaps, Tristan has whisked him away in the swing of a mayday. What if Marcel is the emergency? Dammit. I should have gone to that cemetery last night.  
"Aurora fought valiantly, but alas, she isn't entirely suited to outlast a second dose of morphine. We've put her on the drive to Baton Rouge airport as it suits you. She expects a call before she gets on the plane, though, I wouldn't expect a fully intelligent or long conversation. Where are you?" I aggressively update Tristan by voicemail.  
Footsteps with an assertive tap to them come up behind me where I am faced with Marcel himself.  
"I hope you walked into town with an emergency preparedness kit," Marcel states. "I've got something you need to hear."  
"Unless it is about Tristan himself, I'm uninterested," I brush him off at first.  
Marcel doesn't appear to know where to start, arms swinging out and mouth agape with too many or too little words to form an answer.  
"As of last night, he's dead," he replies. "He pissed off the wrong witch and...now he's powder."  
Arms crossed, I furrow my brows and my stomach curls. Marcel is white as a sheet, so are the rest of us.  
"You're joking," I growl, hoping he is just being cruel. "This man is our leader, the one who is supposed to lead us out of the dark ages and make us the most fearsome group to roam planet earth—"  
"Focus!" he grabs my shoulders. "We don't have time to go over the details; I don't have them!"  
My voice creases as I shout above the gossip, "But you had to have seen it! Who did it, marcel! Who!"  
He pulls away shaking his head tiredly. "I have a registered guess, but you have to be open to the fact it spells for an exodus. Last I recall, Tristan's strategy for survival relied on Jezebel being present, inside an ancient calendar or not. Alright? He was gonna trade her up for extra power, protection, what have you. And now that she's dead, promises were broken."  
And so the Seraphi have opened their battlefield up to us. Assassinate our leader, see what we have left to give. Nevertheless, the only questions of any sense I have is: Jezebel Zaragoza—is she gone for good? And if she was destroyed for a purpose, would it not be to come at Tristan from his blind spot?  
Marcel uncomfortably takes a seat, eyes lingering on mine in dismay.  
"...But you didn't know any of those things, did you?" he realizes. "What he was gonna do with her, with us?"  
I suck on my stomach, as if the air is reeks of my cluelessness and I have to hide it from everyone. "It's not your job to worry what happens next. So long as we survive, you survive. Do not question how. Just be grateful."  
It doesn't keep him at bay, but I am done talking.  
I cut him off as he's about to take the last word, looking around the room, fifty pairs of eyes meeting mine. "Let's make ourselves useful. Get out there and find the culprit. Ariane!"  
Out from the dark of the halls comes my hired witch, Ariane, and her sisters.  
"Your mom know you're helping us out, Ariane?" Marcellus recognizes the local.  
"Since when does Marcel Gerard care about my kind? Let alone my well-being. You heard Aya. It's time to remove yourself," Ariane calmly replies.  
He hasn't the time to worry for her as much as for himself. Tristan is the only one who wants him here; he best find the man vouching for his trustworthiness before Marcel is left to our trials of judgment.  
As he pitifully looks over the teenager and her friends, he leaves the room and lets us continue our work.  
"Now, what news is it you have for me?" I huff.  
"We've been monitoring Freya Mikaelson's activity like you asked. As of now, she's attempting a spell to find the Seraph," one of Ariane's girls swear.  
I ponder, "I imagine she's been found if you're coming to me this early in the process."  
"Not exactly. As it appears...she's passed on a message. She speaks of a weapon, priceless to the old ones. And as yoiu've required, I have come up with a way to use it to save your brethren...and my community," Ariane exposes. "We're going to de-sire you from the originals."

**ELIJAH**

Freya grunts in frustration from behind me as I take in the morning air on the second story terrace.  
"Any luck?" I ask.  
"There's no trace of her whatsoever. I've tried seance, locator spells, descent hexes...none of it applies. It's like Jezebel doesn't exist," Freya huffs.  
I look at the materials she has to work with as I pace over to her. A shard of the sundial we found in the graveyard and an old portrait of our dead most likely on loan from Niklaus.  
From experience, it's very well possible Jezebel didn't want to be found.  
"I don't know if it's because I'm a different form of magic or if someone got to her first...the strongest way is to have some form of live representation. She's too tidy to even leave a hair on the floor, apparently," Freya laments.  
As in something directly created or born from the girl herself. Maybe it is I who's been too miraculous to come forward.  
I raise my hand as a gesture for her patience while I retrieve her a plausible instrument to help the search along.  
Up in the garret of the house, I anxiously look over my shoulder for a witness while I lift Rebekah's chest of forgotten vestments off of a safe I never spoke the combination of.  
Turning it a few times with frustrated and trembling hands, it swings open and gently hits my leg in protest of my rush.  
I detest to admit to my siblings that I have a trunk of "souvenirs" myself; in fact, I dropped most of them out in the Atlantic while voyaging from continent to continent. But this one was the one I could never part with. It was the toy chest that kept me in mind of what I do for this family.  
My hand wraps around a dried, lint-ridden baby blanket; yellow in color, dirtied by poor insulation and the sediment of constantly being moved from land to land. The Malaysian floral design embroidered in the same yellow thread and cotton was still noticeable, and the stiff cotton trim around the cotton stuffed center still smelt of industrial dyes from India.  
I went back to Freya and set it next to her hand, praying no questions would be asked.  
"What is this?" she asks.  
"Something she left behind. It wasn't formerly hers, but it is something she'd been gifted," I tell her vaguely, "Do you think it will suffice?"  
The candles on the table turn blue the second Freya puts it at the center of her work.  
"That's a good sign. Give me your hand," Freya requests.  
Keeping a standing position, I lend her my hand as she places her other over compiled ashes of our last fire and begin a chant.  
"_Liro frans sec de tum, unus por dahv shen liro frans sec de tum..." _repeats Freya.  
The ashes start to sail gradually on an invisible breeze. They swirl, glide, then splash upward against her wrist and coil their little grains around her limb like a serpent. It begins to melt into a sparkling grey liquid, like motor oil.  
When the substance stops circling, Freya breaks her concentration and turns her arm over.  
"...Quick. Your handkerchief," Freya demands.  
I stir it from my pocket, whipping it to keep the fabric from wrinkling the original design she intends to copy. Taking it gently, she presses it to the quickly evaporating fluid and capturing its rust-smelling phantasm.  
When she surrenders it to me, I am surprised my eyes do not address a message but a picture.  
"It's a knight," I mutter.  
"...That doesn't make sense?" Freya mutters. "Is she telling us where she is? A grave marker maybe?"  
She wasn't a precious loss, I always thought, just another body to burn in a dumpster or leave in a ditch. All grudges aside, I knew it had nothing to do with Jezebel at all. It may not have made sense to Freya, but it certainly did to me. I gave witness to our brother carving that little white oak knight.  
"No. It's a warning," I confess. "She's telling us to hide it."

**CELESTE**

They haven't done much to clean my chest tomb. The flowers live, the candles flicker with life, but my name is tarnished and browned to unintelligibility. Elijah either learned to regret me enough to misremember me here or my sisterhood of descendants wouldn't let him so much as breathe on my name plaque.  
Sensing a presence behind me, I expect Van to be back with a vengeance.  
"Marcel Gerard," surprised, I find the handsome man staring back.  
He nears me bravely, eyes narrow and wary of me.  
Marcel greets me, "I don't know who I'm talking to, but... I saw what you did. Didn't care for the guy, can't say I'm not elated, but you sent us sailing into some rough waters."

"I assume this is about that boy; the one everybody has been so troubled by. Tristan De Martel expected many things from someone like me; someone superior to his kind. And so, just as when a boy asks too much from his parents, he gets things taken away. Such as his sole privilege: immortality. I could burn his bones; his soul, unfortunately, is a different matter."  
He draws his head back by the craning of his neck.  
"Who are you?"  
"A frustrated witch with a heavy agenda, met by his mis-care for a very important child," I vaguely reply.  
He scoffs, aware of one miscalculation.  
"What if I told you that wasn't him? And it was me?" he tells me.  
To my silence, he widens those doubtful brown eyes. "C'mon, you're so omniscient, you had to have seen that coming."  
I let it be known, "She's not dead. She's hiding. We'll see how long that lasts. If you speak the truth, I ought to thank you, Marcel. She's right where I want her. You know, you are unlike your brotherhood. You can beckon a favor from me when the time is right. You, alone."  
He shakes his head, deciding to back off. I've wasted his time, but he hasn't wasted mine.  
"I wouldn't count on it," he dismisses himself.  
I grab his arm, turning his back around. "Then, don't think twice. Just stay out of the way and write your will."

With one last lingering stare into Vincent's possessed eye, he backs away and swiftly exits the unholy walkway. A hound of whispers erupt from outside as he passes through them.  
I turn the corner from my resting place, strutting up an aisle of coven members, taking my place at the head of their sights on an outdoor altar put in place not long after I first arrived here in my true form.

Here, I begin to tell them, "Good Spirits of New Orleans, forgive my appearance. It is quite deceiving. I've been given permission to speak through your Regent."  
Silence falls. Marcel has stuck around to here this, as well. Van Nguyen butts his way to the head of the crowd, like he wants to assert his critical air towards me first. I don't plan to leave anything open to question. "Allow me to reintroduce myself: my name is Celeste DuBois, founder of the first coven in Louisiana. And I'm here to lead you to salvation from your persecutors. All you have to do is receive."

**KLAUS**

The fine edges of Jezebel's portrait were burned off in Freya's spell, but it leaves a perfect deconstruction where I infernally went over the same spot of fabric with pastel over and over again. The bottom of my shoe steps on something with more bounce than the carpet just beneath the coffee table. It must have fallen during the spell.  
Crouching down, my hand climbs over the soft edges of a smooth fabric with familiar spots of rougher stitching. I pull on it, revealing the folded up yellow blanket I knew well. There were some stains on it from use, pale pink and orange on the bottom side. I unfolded it in my hands, remember handing it to Jezebel for the first time on a Sunday morning. She looked sick to her stomach, pained by the meaning. Even then, I remember seeing it sit on top of the covers in her room, neatly folded without a single crease every time I walked into her threshold. It dawns on me, I never took it back.

Elijah leans in the distant doorway of the dim room, stiffly observing me turn the item over in my hands.  
"...Where did you get this?" I query.  
He doesn't answer to me. He comes closer, watching my head rotate as if on a bobble, expecting him to comply.  
I foretell, "Judging by the look on your face, it must have had some importance that you should have taken it and kept it in this house for this long."  
Elijah clears his throat quietly, shifting back onto two feet and coming to sit by me and my topped off wine glass.  
"When I found her in the farmhouse, it was the only thing that was left of her. When the church came to take the child for burial, they gave me the blanket. I was conflicted to return it to you, if I should at all," Elijah mutters apologetically. "If recovering from Aurora was as difficult as it was for a tale of similar telling, I'd feel guilty rehashing the issue."  
"Why would you feel guilty?" I feel suspicious of his hesitations.  
"I don't know. I suppose because she knew my fiancée better than I did," he murmured, leaning forward on one knee. "I'll get over it. She's done us another favor. Jezebel told us what we should look for."  
"You found the weapon. Why have we not gone after it already!" I scold.  
Elijah's fists ball up as though I will only answer to his worst fear. "Because it is right here in this house. And it's been there in your hands...where's the knight, Niklaus?"  
My mind wraps around the small knight I'd carved centuries ago, just sitting in the library and waiting to be seen. It still wreaks of the white oak tree that it came from and even continues to draw gnats looking for sap. How could I have been so absentminded?  
I hurry in the opposite direction my hand jetting outward as soon as it passes the doorframe. It lands on the third shelf up where mother's grimoire sits in a spell lock in the empty spot where the knight is supposed to be. The collection of dust dances around a more saturated shape on the surface.

**AYA**

The unbearable news of Tristan is investigated and served to be correct. Ariane examines the ashes which Marcellus returns to us and finds his essence almost immediately in one sinking touch. Not all is lost, thankfully.  
Ariane suggests his soul can be saved if we can find a welcoming sort of detainment for him in the spirit realm. She returns to the idea of the Seraph's entrance—on a gold calendar.  
"Although we lack a leader and a culprit..." I address, looking down on Marcel's dipped head and crossed arms. "We are not without a will to move forward and commence a new life—based on a single plan."  
"Which would be?" A polite voice chimes in.  
Elijah parades into the room of dying winter light, tossing his fine coat aside like laundry in his own house. "Hello everyone. Wonderful to see you all under the circumstances, of course. My condolences on the unforeseen death in the family. I'm sure Tristan is eloquently missed."  
His eyes land on my irritable gaze.  
"Aya," he chirps, "how cozy we appear to be leading Tristan's abandoned circus. But sadly, one does not ascend to the position of leader—it kind of has to be by my consent."  
I aggressively roll his hands off of my leather sheathed shoulders. He takes them away voluntarily as he paces my corner. I look at Marcel from the corner of my eye for a reaction. Does he smile like a traitor or frown like an oppressed fool?  
Elijah goes on, "You see, I am the founding father of you all. I get to choose the leader here, and unfortunately for every last one of you, I've already chosen a candidate. Today is the day I take back what is mine. Objections anyone?"  
Silence is heard, given there isn't much time to answer.  
"When all of you consent, it is my opportunity to return you to greatness!" Elijah preaches.  
Marcel remarks suddenly, "Really? Just gonna come in here and start making demands?"  
He is shushed by Elijah almost immediately.  
Marcel is belittled by Elijah, "Marcel, the grownups are speaking. Aya! Tell me how long it's been since you saw _this._"  
Like a magician he unravels the coat he's tossed upon the window seat and reveals an eight-centuries-old scroll with handles I myself engraved to frame his charter.  
"The Charter of the Strix...who would even think to write this? Oh, yes. Me. Now, as it says here...'it shall be my duty to uphold the tenants of the charter', _da-ta-da-ta-da_...oh, this is important. 'In the absence of a worthy leader, the charter will be invoked and dominion shall be restored to Elijah Mikaelson'."  
Proudly and with feigned exhaustion, he tosses his work onto the small chair once more. Under no circumstance will I accept. Some of these vampires are not old enough to reject him alongside me. It's been long enough that no one remembers his neglect like I do except what would have been Tristan.  
I scoff, "If you desire to stake this absurd claim that you are leader, then I demand the right to _Ludum Regale_."  
"And what would that...'days of yore' term mean, exactly?" Marcel smiles with question.  
Yet, he is only left to wonder.

"Let's not do this, shall we?" Elijah stubbornly rejects my request.  
I chuckle, "Ah, ah! I know the rules. As it happens, I helped you write them. You cannot invoke one end of the charter and disregard the rest."  
If our leadership is in doubt and politics prove divisive, a contest of strength and cunning shall determine the line of succession.  
"I challenge you, Elijah. Whoever holds the charter at the stroke of midnight is the new lead! Do you accept?" I declare.  
A simper appears on Elijah's face as if the ability to duel me drives a bit of excitement within him. I can't wait to see those pearly fangs on the floor when I walk away leader, once and for all.

**AURORA**

"Stop! Stop the car! I'm not going anywhere!" I scream from the backseat. "Not without Tristan."  
The two drivers from my brother's league exchange a glance. I know they've been given mandate not to speak, let alone look at me. Tiptoe around me—this is what everyone is going to have to do to survive me, yes? Sometimes, it just makes things worse.  
"Fine. I'll stop it myself," I growl.  
I lurch, in a half-sedated state, forward over the console of the passenger seat and bite into the wrist of the driver. I do not let go until I feel the car swerving uncontrollably. It topples like a card castle, bouncing our bodies like rubber bands off a bloody wrist.  
Ablaze, I exit the vehicle through its most broken window—but I am still not free of the medication coursing through my veins.  
"Tristan, Tristan..." I moan tiredly.  
I fall asleep there on wet gravel and cold highway lines.


	11. Tempus Fugit

**MARCEL**

"Oh! We're really gonna do this," I laugh at them, "The oldest, most sophisticated vampires in history and we settle our disputes like kids on a jungle gym!"  
Elijah tears the boxing rink gates open with such a drastic tug, I thought it might go flying off the loose hinges. Aya follows him inside, one of her good friends eagerly shutting the entrance behind them and hinging it closed.  
Her jacket flies over the side of the cage, her foot rapidly pivoting to face her opponent.  
"I could order my brethren to fight for me, and such is their loyalty. That would only make this more of the childish sentiment you speak to. This is between me and Elijah. Leadership must be earned," Aya announces. "One way or another, that charter will land in my palm."  
I hear the tacky clinking of Elijah's cufflinks hitting the seat of the metal cage borders.  
"Come get it," he invites her jovially.  
Aya did not leave room for anticipation. Her leg jetted straight out from her side and made it an inch close to his lower back before Elijah's right hand strikes it down, catches it, and permits him to launch her into the side of the cage.  
My fingers curl through the holes in the chainlink with investment in the moment.  
They move at the speed of light, their movements blurry to the naked eye. It starts looking like Aya is evading every single one of Elijah's shots, not doing much to fight back until a courageous fist looks to take a very low blow. Elijah moves out of the way and sends her traveling.  
"Are you quite done?" he pants.  
Quickly, she rebuttals, "You'd have me submit? Once again, I must remind you I have a mind of my own."  
She punches, he catches, she punches with the other fist, he crosses them once over the other and locks her into his grip long enough for her arms to flicker with loss of sensation. Then, he grabs her neck swifter than any bear's paw.  
"This does not have to be so difficult," he murmurs.  
Aya disagrees, "Oh please, how could you think we would follow you in the first place."  
She uses her feet to overpower him and bounce him away, roundhouse kicking and jabbing her iron foot out like a wrecking ball for Elijah to dodge every time. Free of his obligation to hold back, Elijah catches her last attempt to double him over and shoves it over her head until she's flat on her stomach on the floor.  
"You all swore loyalty to the very least person who deserved it. He took advantage of what we had...he took advantage of the past...and he made us a tyranny," he pants furiously, jabbing his fingers where he imagined Tristan to be right now.  
He should have watched his words.  
"...You ran," she ached, getting to her feet, "You ran like dog on its last leg and you left us to be slaughtered. You're no founding father...you just paint it as an image on the wall between us."  
"You know I had no choice!" Elijah claimed.  
"Lies! I saw my brethren slaughtered by the dozens that day—all because you couldn't live up to the bravery you championed to have and face your mad father! And don't say anything. I already know what comes next... 'Always and Forever'. And yet, you told us we _were _a family! You should have seen the ruin, the wreckage—"  
Interjected he, "And I did! You'll never know the devastation I felt when I believed you to be dead."  
She smiled maniacally, shaking her head.  
"Yet, I did not. Could not. Thanks to the effort of a true nobleman. It was Tristan who was our savior. And he earned our loyalty!" Aya exclaimed.  
He recalls, "Tristan was the usurper who stole our dream. He is the antichrist of everything we had fought for."  
"Say what you will. It does not change the fact that you...are as cursed as your family. Use your eyes, brothers and see! This is Elijah Mikaelson Traitor to our cause! And I will happily die if it means he will never have a chance of leading our people," Aya swore.

"So be it," remarks Elijah.  
Propelled three feet off the ground, Aya's neck is about to snap in his grip. For god's sake, this will take another century to finish. Aya isn't dying today. Given Elijah will eventually cave and let her go, everyone in the room knows what each side is really fighting for: using my city as a homebase. My city.

I think fast. Working against their obliviousness to other motion in the room, I burst into the boxing cage and take the scroll, simultaneously knocking Aya out of Elijah's grip. They tumble to the floor like a tower of blocks, eyes zooming around for the culprit as I watch from the overhead balcony.

"I thought we were gonna talk ourselves to death. Since I have your attention, let me remind you of something. This city was left in my hands and it remains mine at this very second! We're gonna do this my way. So catch me if you can," I invite the staring party.

Off into the dark I go, headed for the one place I know will be least searched.

**AYA**

My phone only vibrates once before I decide to pick it up. Aurora's number is memorized and feared by everyone, particularly myself.  
"I don't have time for this right n—"  
"You'll make time," a solemn, less jovial voice I don't recognize comes through the phone.  
Aurora sounds broken, sick with depression.  
"My deepest condolences...and I truly mean that. You should be safe from the mountains in Japan; until the culprit is caught, you will receive word—"  
"You would think Tristan's right-hand man wouldn't have to think twice about his enemies in rank. I don't want word, I want revenge. I will take it myself," she sniffles.  
She's not in her right mind; she never is when she sounds this sober. At least, Tristan warned me of his sister's personage long before now. Aurora will always be the opposite of what she appears to be. Calm? She's furious. Depressed, aimless—she's motivated. Ecstatic—she's hurt. You can try to trace it back to a source, but you can't ever predict what comes next.  
"And I want you to help, regardless. And if you refuse me, the white oak stays with me," Aurora bargains, quite weepy.  
Dammit. Of all people. she has the weapon. I would have to shuttle her back to this god awful city, re-enter her into the arena if I wanted to get to it fast. Apparently, I'm mistaken.  
On Bourbon tonight, the most impacted street of all, there is a jazz band playing violently in the night. It echoes on Aurora's side of the phone.  
"Where...are you?" I swallow.  
She hangs up. "See you soon."

**AURORA**

I take the precious little knight, tossing it like shark food into the dark of the trunk where I can hear its touch shock Freya by the cold and sharp touch of the wooden hooves or tiny spear. She kicks and beats against the side of the trunk, making me roll my eyes and aim to check on her health before I decide what to do with her.  
The trunk flies upon on my pressing touch and she struggles against the magical barrier that keeps her from attempting a death roll.  
Shakily, she takes me in with her groggy glance and scoffs without surprise.  
"Aurora...what did you do to me?" she grovels.  
I giggled, "Just doing a little experimentation. I wanted to see what the effect a concoction had on you that my dearly passed brother made for me. How do you like it? Rather effective...wouldn't you say?"  
"After all your desperation to hammer your stake into my family, I'm surprised at you. We had nothing to do with Tristan...Aurora. No one even counted on him being dead yet!" she pleas with not-so-hidden disgust.  
"Yes, but someone did! Alive or dead, I blame it on all of you!" I burst.  
She sees the outline of my hand wrap around the weapon I keep close like precious gold. That's the only think missing from these white oak bullets. A center made of fool's gold for a family of monsters. I forget if metal moves faster than wood when it comes to bullets, but I suppose we'll have to find out.  
"Whatever you plan to do...it will not work. My brothers will come for me," she seeks to deter me.  
But that's precisely what I'm counting on.  
I remark, "Question is...will they find you in time to save your life?"  
I quickly remove the gun from hiding and aim low, listening to the rivet shot of the bullet enter the skin at the same rate she lets out a pathetic yelp.  
The smell of blood should linger for long enough that the boys will follow. But before I go on my way, a quick phone call.

**ELIJAH**

I stand before a small inn with hands in my pockets, where I plan to spend the rest of my evening. Aya's approach is expected. Often, I'm an excellent judge of habits; naturally, Aya is right on my tail to snatch my discovery.  
"A novice leader of vampires snatches the scroll, and here, you have yet to do a thing about it," she purrs.  
"There are several sources looking for Marcel. It won't be long. Though, I can't imagine that this turn of events will improve your odds," I sigh.  
She derides me with a tender cackle. "Please. The Strix will be the first over any local to find him. And when they do, that scroll will be delivered to me personally."  
Interesting. Of course, Marcel is very popular with the locals. Aya should understand, if she is any expert on this city, that if he finds refuge in any one of the many residences around here, nobody involved is at the liberty to enter.

"Let me ask you something about what happened at the gym. You had your moment to end me and you didn't—"  
"Allow me to stop you there. I would not dwell on it so much. The opportunity will arise again, and when it does, I will certainly make it a lot quicker than my last attempt," I interrupt. "But if you insist on knowing defeat, allow me to show it to you."  
I take out my cell phone, punishing each button of Marcel's number with a crushing pressure.  
The line shuffles on the other end, reminiscent of Marcel's cracked phone screen.  
"Well, this little escapade has been very cute indeed, Marcel. Why don't you come outside and give me the charter?" I sarcastically muse.  
Marcel comes to the window, looking down upon me as he states, "I'm good right where I am. I got about three minutes until I'm the new Grand Poobah. Until then, good luck trying to get inside."  
"If you think I'm above burning this place to the ground, you are gravely mistaken," I threaten.  
"Well, that's not very civilized, is it?"  
I indicate my short of temper with a brief pause and a quick puff of my chest. "Outside. Now."  
Aya steps forward on a noisy heel. "It's midnight, Elijah. Time's run out. According to our own laws, the contest is complete."  
"Guess that makes me the winner," Marcel notes, through the phone.  
Ridiculous. This wasn't a contest. This was evasion.  
As Marcellus disappears from the window before us, we wait until he's face to face with us in the dropping temperatures of night that carries our breath in white clouds.  
He shakes the scroll in his left hand above his head with the likeness of an infant and its rattle.  
"I had a little time to read your charter. The _ludum regale_ was never meant to be just a fistfight. Aspiring leaders face off in a contest that requires cunning. Why? Because you want a leader with more brains than brawn. Reason I beat you all is because I know every nook and cranny in the Quarter. Underground tunnels, secret passageways between properties. And since I'm so charming, I get invited everywhere!" Marcel boasts proudly.  
I make a show of it, using his performance of a proud man against him and subduing him by the hand I put through his chest. he gags and twitches with severe discomfort. Though, my hand does not reside around his heart. Rather, it loosely hangs within. We officially have the Strix fooled.  
"You kill me, you are in violation of your own damn charter. Nobody's gonna follow your rules if you can't follow them yourself," Marcel chokes out.  
Aya nods in the corner of my eye, gesturing at me without glancing in my direction to let him free. "He's right, Elijah."  
I drop Marcel, who stumbles back and gives me a rapid glance of warning at my overdramatic approach.  
He pants, "I'm not the strongest one here. But I won the game. I've been watching the Mikaelsons my whole life. Studied them since I was a kid. That's how I drove them out of New Orleans in the first place. Rebuilt this city in my image under my rules. Offered alliances to all of my friends and got rid of everybody else. This is my city because I took it. That is what a leader does! If this prophecy that you're all afraid of is gonna happen, it's gonna happen here, on my streets. And if we're gonna stop it from killing us all, who's a better leader than me?"  
Outstretching his arms, it looks as though he expects applause of some kind.  
Aya turns to address my conflicted face. "He has won. Better to stand with him and fight to live than stand with you. You'll be little more than an afterthought. To the new leader of the Strix... Marcel Gerard."  
I basked in the moment they were beautifully distracted from the ordeal of the white oak. So...I suppose I will have to celebrate this moment goes to Marcel. If he could control my sires, what about the enemies of my family? If a sire line war comes about in the midst of a toxic witch infestation, The Quarter is going to bloom into a war zone. Here, we now have an army. Perhaps, we can keep this wretched prophecy at bay. Let's hope Marcel can keep these imbeciles in line in the mean time.  
Klaus's name appears on the phone in my hand where I am forced to step away from the great divide of master and followers.

_We have an issue. Come home. - Klaus_


	12. In My Dreams

_Rebekah__, __I apologize for my absence of understanding, care, passion, concern. It was one of the things I'd like to say before I tell you of my ensuing sin. My life was taken today. It was long overdue. The secrets I harbor are no more a crime than that. Because they are no long to be secrets. I am leaving them to you. Do what you will with them._

**ELIJAH**

_November 11th_

"Burn down the city? Have you gone mad!" I cried.  
Rubbing the bridge of his nose, my slatternly brother slumped in the seat by the grand fireplace.  
"What other choice do we have! Running will put a strain on our sister, leave our city in the hands of the next tyrant who comes along! I'd rather it be eliminated than be overthrown," he pieced his reasons together.  
"...Is that what Jezebel told you to do?" I assumed.  
There was no one he'd rather have spent his time with the last two weeks. Ever since she came along, every bad thing that seemed to have feared had already happened.  
The front of his half-buttoned shirt lurched forward before him, his feet stomping into the ground as he stood.  
"And what does our father's arrival have to do with her?" Klaus dared me.  
I wouldn't make a direct correlation, I knew better than that.  
"Will you consider it? Kol perishes, Celeste is in a horrid mood when she's here, she put her unloved child inside Rebekah—"  
"And she's not liable to be the reason for any such events! She's done nothing but kindness for us. She gave Rebekah her dream, she's been there for me more than you have in an entire week—! And Celeste, oh, don't get me started. A hair out of place on your head has her splitting her britches!" Klaus crowed.  
"I tremble only for the thought that your happiness is conceivably happening upon false terms, Niklaus. Endangering you!"  
"So, now you're worried about me and my happiness? Well, allow me to make it easier on you. You agreed to break the vow we made when you chose to put a ring on that blasted woman's finger. You made the choice to care about one person's happiness, not even your own! When we flee this house, you're free to honeymoon in a favela on the southern coast. I'm going to be here, lighting a match, and taking my sister to safety in the bayou. Once our father has passed, we'll rebuild—and we'll not expect a visit from you or your merry hag." He ends his claims by sipping his wine glass of our last servant's blood, stepping over the gigantic stain he'd left on the fur rug to obtain it.  
"You want to push me away, now of all times in this hellish ride of life?" I yelled.  
Klaus jabbed his finger into my face. "I want you to make a decision! Are you my brother, are you on my side or are you the slave of a witch, just like we were to our mother!"  
In the dead of night, we were void of the sound of echoing quarrels and breaking glass. All we could hear was the bang of our front gates opening and closing in the stormy twilight. This time, we heard them close, the rain and thunder attempting to mock the distinct sound of an intruder.  
"Stay here," Elijah commanded.  
"Excellent escape, brother, pretending to be frightened by a little wind and rain. Quite extraordinary of you!" I jeered at him.  
He halts my speak with a single hand, leaning toward the side of the grand dining area's glass-door entrance.  
"Do you smell that?" He questioned quietly.  
A hand bursted through the glass and pulled Elijah out into the storm, breaking through the rest of the door's wooden sills. Silence fell, and in my sensitive vampire ears, I could not even sense a struggle.  
"Elijah!" I called out frantically.  
Elijah dives from a tall height head first into the cobblestone of the courtyard, suffering a temporary death. Touching down next to him, barely missing my brother's chest as a landing, is Mikael himself.  
My eyes dry up in their sockets, my legs swollen with paralysis and a disabling tinge of tension.  
"Hello, Boy," beckoned our father. "We have some business to take care of."

**REBEKAH**

I'm pressed to the wall of the hallway, just before the grand dining room, where Klaus has met our father in the dark. I gazed down at my enormous belly, torn between running and trying to find the white oak daggers. Elijah always tells us when he relocates them, but never to where. He tells us the room; this time, it just so happened to be the room where we enjoy our meals and where I am in plain sight.  
"What are you doing here? How did you find us!" Klaus cries angrily.  
"A little birdie I plan on saving for last." Mikael paces around Elijah's unconscious body to be in front of it, in front of Niklaus. "I'd ask who I should start with, but given you're low on defenses..."  
He looked back at the son he was proud of, the one who had the ability to bring honor and control had Mikael been a hands-off parent.  
"...I say I take my chances and put you down. Unless, you'd like a delay, I'll call your sister and brother out here and...they can go first."  
A hand clamped down on my shoulder, making me jump. Jezebel stood behind me, concerned for my state.  
"What are you doing?" She frowned.  
I put a hand in front of her mouth to stop her from giving us away.  
"You shouldn't be here," I quaked even as I mouthed my words.  
Still unable to understand, she leaned into the doorway and pulled me back.  
"You mean Kol? How could you be so daft as to not know when one of your own children, one of the sirelines you co-created falls to a far superior source?" Klaus scowled. "I daresay, you're losing your touch, old man."  
"Would you like to test me?" Mikael dared him, his eyes rippling with a menacing red and black rainbow of thirst.  
A battle begins, Klaus foolishly taking a running start and failing to see Mikael equip his elbow readily to knock him to the ground. Klaus kicks off Mikael's lurching torso and pushes off, sending him across the courtyard.  
"Why aren't we stopping them?" Jezebel frowned at me, coming out of view again.  
"That's our father! He wasn't supposed to find us, not now!" I panicked. "What am I going to do, what if he—"  
Niklaus sailed through the dining room, not able to do much more than destroy the table and half its artisan chairs. He's halfway to being beaten.  
"Klaus," Jezebel quietly checked for his conscious.  
His eyes came up for one second alone to see her as he lied there in the wreckage. It made him act quicker, with more preparation for Mikael's incoming attack. White oak stake in hand, Klaus is able to roll out of the way and draw him away from us.  
My eyes are frantically searching the dining room from afar for any hint of a dagger's hideout. My eyes fall on the wreath above the smashed crystal candelabras and golden wine tray.  
"Jezebel...they're going towards the courtyard. Bring me that wreath. Now," I led her.  
Jezebel looked between me and the wreath I stared at. As brave as they came, she took the wreath before either soggy and bloody men could notice. I took it to the ground, searching it frantically, opening its bindings and its false twigs. There was nothing.  
My eyes landed on a glimmer caused by lightning form above. It had shone down on the dagger that had now skidded towards the open door of the dining room, close enough to the two originals where Jezebel could end up hurt or worse. Klaus would never forgive me; he wouldn't be awake to make the decision, either. One fatal snap of his neck and he lay atop Elijah like a kebab of lambs for Mikael's slaughter.  
We were doomed. I pressed back against the wall hopelessly. There came one drawback with my state; if I did anything, this baby would cease at a chance to know me. This was never a good idea, and I can't believe I bought into it. I knew this was bound to happen, and I would have no means to stop it. Jezebel watched horrifically, with an open mouth and a befuddled more than anxious expression. Her eyes watered like a child who was loved by their father.  
"...I made a mistake," I muttered, dreading the worst. "You have to take it back."  
Jezebel's wet eyes met mine. "What!"  
I watched Mikael's breath heave into his chest upon hearing her voice. She hid herself again, still looking at me.  
I whispered to her, "Jezebel. You tried to make a dream of mine come true. That is more than anyone, even my brothers, have done for me. But I forgot just one thing. To be a mother, I have to be able to take care of myself. And I believe it when you say your story is no different. My father is here and if he sees me like this, I won't get far. You need to take it back. Right now."  
"I can't, you know I can't do that," she resented.  
My eyes began to imitate the rainfall. "Yes, you can! Just do it! Please, don't let this baby die!"  
Jezebel shook her head stubbornly, throat closing up on her and her shallow breath. "Rebekah, you don't understand—"  
"Understand that you're afraid? That you just don't want to go through with something that is not nearly as threatening to you as it is to me? Don't be a fool. Take it back!"  
Mikael's footsteps then began to approach. We hadn't been quiet enough. Jezebel looked down, mouth widened with word loss as she observed my pastel skirt turn orange-red.  
"...You're bleeding. You're bleeding," she panicked.  
A sharp pain churns in my stomach, like a thousand needles trying to turn my insides to crochet. It travelled downward until it was in the pit of my stomach and throbbing like hot coals.  
"No... No, Rebekah, stay awake. Stay awake, please, stay awake," Jezebel hollered as my eyes began to close and irrevocably shut.

_One Saturday, a good friend of yours came to see me. She insisted she had news of you and her in-motion plans for you. As you had always doubt, you were given the opportunity to have a child. I rejoiced and in seconds, had planned my way into helping you in any way I could think._

**ELIJAH**

"Rebekah!" I heard a female voice chanting quietly.  
I was mouthing it under my groggy battle between exhaustion and Niklaus's heavy weight on top of me. I looked down at my bleeding brother, neck still in the process of healing. Mikael was nowhere in sight but he could be back any minute.  
"Stay away," the same voice groveled. "You disobeyed me once, I dare you to do it again."  
"You still don't understand, do you?" our father chortled. "You've urged me to kill the unkillable—a thing truly made immortal. I've done my duty, which was only to protect my family from their grotesque talons—but you, you seek to empower them, not undermine them. The longer my children live, the longer those beasts have a purpose. One that will rid you of the burden on your back so long as they live! Why do you torture yourself so?"  
All the while, I can only see the closeness of raindrops falling in front of my dry red eyes, plopping on the smelly stone floors and splashing my cheeks.  
Mikael goes on with the girl, "Wake up and see! You are the villain in your story! You are the impediment to everything you fight for, the reason the beasts that made you still live—!"  
A deep, tormented scream turned into a beastly growl. Not of a wolf or of any urban pest. It was monstrous, guttural, primal. A brilliant shock of orange and red light waves like a mass of ribbons just beyond the doorway of our destroyed dining room.  
"Go away..." the morphing voice cried out.  
"You can't protect them, young blood. Not for the rest of your living days. But in death, you'll see...you'll wonder. Why did you ever take interest? For they will be the ones who put you with your brethren far below the ground," Mikael panted.  
The creature inside the house responded with a noise that imitates a wooden stick against jail cell bars. Trying to stay away from its span of attention, I keep low to the ground and find the nearby white oak dagger at the edge of the boundary between the house and the outside world.  
Our father falls back to avoid the devilish blow, his breath gruff and nearly frightened.  
"I said go away!" a louder shriek called.  
Our father flies from the room, dragged out by an unseen force right past Niklaus and I. He's clutching his throat as if he can't breathe, gurgling on his blood which spills onto my outstretched arm. The racket rouses Klaus to consciousness. His eyes are squinted tightly, face red like a lukewarm star as he vanished into quicker than I'd ever seen before.  
The growling nearby soon turned to weeping. I helped myself to my feet, hand wrapped around the dagger still; but as I enter our broken home, I find no beast and no happiness. Only dear Rebekah, lying in a pool of her own blood.  
I dropped the instrument immediately, knees hitting the wooden floor and sliding me closer to her unconscious form.  
"Rebekah!" I moaned. "Rebekah!"  
I traced the bleeding back to where I could only understand its continuity. She was having a miscarriage.  
"Niklaus!" I screamed my requirement of help.

**CELESTE**

She's a mess. Hyperventilating, hair soddened by the wet world outside and baby blue trenchcoat wrapped so tightly around her it was no guess there was nothing beneath. She pressed her back against the farmhouse door, beginning to sob in fear.  
"You trained her well," a voice echoes in my waking conscious.  
"Siccatum," I whispered thrice.  
My eyes open inside my old cottage within the Southern bayou, body still convulsing like a gelatin element from my astral projection. Mikael stood before me, looking down over my blind and waking display atop a ripped armchair  
"I taught her nothing. She learned herself. From your son's grimoires," I groaned as I rose myself to a seated position, letting a wave of nausea sweep over to pass.  
"So, it's true. You've killed him," Mikael lamented, contradictingly.  
What a silly man, what a joke—dying to have his children slaughtered and laid to rest, yet mourning one that doesn't fall at his hand. He should be grateful. There are only so many left to deal with now.  
"There's something to learn, Mikael. I could have let you fight her, but when you come to town, you always go too far. I need her alive. I needed that baby alive," I notified.  
"You could have spared my poor daughter—"  
I got to my feet, pacing around him to find my robe and defend myself against the chilled night. "On the contrary, Jezebel went against my will and did what she did to Rebekah herself. Not even I am capable of that power. Jezebel used _naualotl_."  
"There is no such thing," Mikael denied my reasoning.  
His hands rippled into fists, fighting a sweaty state. I could hear his heart beating wildly; still upset he couldn't finish the job, I supposed. No doubt he was planning to take it out on me.  
I continued, "There was once. Long before you...in the times of Carmila and mine. It was the basis for all things supernatural...nature itself. It's proven one thing to me. She may be stronger than even her mother."  
I added a log to the broken fireplace, fallen bricks forming a small barrier around the heap of ash that had no embers left to make the home sparkle. He steps forward, one hand disappearing into the back of his belt.  
"I punished her as you asked. Now you'll give me what you promised! The only children who deserve my attendance. Henrik, Freya... You'll give them life," He all but begged.  
I couldn't find a find a solid intent in his priorities. Henrik, I could contest for; he was a small boy when we ordered his erasure by those wolves. Freya Mikaelson—now—he would just have to figure it on his own. She never crossed over from our dimension; she may not have even been dead.  
"I said you should consider my abilities to do so if you did exactly what I said. I made no promises. But you are deserving of one thing..." I laughed at him.  
Looking down at my pregnant belly and feeling Carmila kick from the inside, I pushed down the lace rim of bedskirt to see the smooth and dark line escalating down the protrusion in the mirror beside the fire mantle.  
"You helped me put Carmila right where she belongs...in me," I gleed, "and since she'll be upon us soon, all we require is Jezebel's slaughter. No more will the balance me weighted on either side of life. We'll evade wars, pestilence, famine, death...the Murder of Seraphi will have total control of immortality. We will be God."  
Carmila kicked and punched like the warrior she was; she vibrated like an exquisite clan of fireflies within me, the silhouette of her face pushing to gain visibility through my thin skin.  
"There will be no God but the ones we started with. I can't let you have this rebirth, Celeste."  
"Oh? And you would try to stop me?"  
He lunged as I had challenged him to.  
I rose a single hand into the air, summoning a transfer of particles to a deserted environment. He swung out into the open range just before the unguarded Mississippi River, falling in.  
I stand at the edge, under the moonlight, watching him flail and wade in the rapid part of the current. The white oak stake in his hand rose above his head, as he chose to save it instead of himself.  
My turned over palms form cradle-like positions, phalanges stiff and aching from the intense concentration of power I put over his body. Watery hands broke the surface, dragging him down and clawing at his immortal skin.  
Reminiscing and empowering my spell, I used my native language, "Mikael of the Mikaelson clan. I bind you from doing harm to the other side of the mortal earth. Should you cross seas within the next three decades, you will drown a watery death by the hands of the Chief of Trespass, Tlaloc."  
He shrieked with sheer ferocity as he drew his last breath on these shores. The hands continued to pull him down until he was no more than a petite bubble of air breaking the surface.

_But this girl insisted that for you to have as much, I must give her my life. I denied it to her. I had to be alive for you, for the baby. But if you read this now, she has decided to take what she previously asked for at her self-importance of refraining from becoming a mother. _

**ELIJAH**

_November 15th_

"You're sure. That you're fine?" Jezebel's gentle speech overtook Rebekah's bedroom.  
"...For the most part. I'm remorseful for us both, really. Had I tried harder to stay awake, I wouldn't have left you alone with Mikael," Rebekah maffled back.  
Jezebel kneeled at her bedside, playing with her own hands on top of Rebekah's covers, staring at them avoidantly. "I wasn't—"  
Rebekah stopped her before she could lie to her. "You can lie to my brothers, but I don't come as close to that kind of stupidity. You were there."  
I meddled from behind the vaguely shut door, watching Jezebel admit to it by a mere smile.  
"...I can handle myself. But if I could have saved it I would. I was more concerned about the three of you. You're very deserving of the chances you get," she told Rebekah.  
"That's rather assumptive of someone who just met us."  
I agreed.  
"No. I didn't," Jezebel whispered, trying not to smile at her pathetic imagination. "I met you in another life, I think. That's how I know who to fight for and with. I'm just sorry I couldn't fight for your baby a little harder."  
Rebekah grinned lethargically and touched Jezebel's hands, saying, "Well, there's no need. The baby's going to be fine. And I'll take care of her, once again. Just as you said I could."  
The caring looking in Jezebel's eyes faded faster than the glimmer of sun hitting the crystal possessions of Rebekah's room.  
Jezebel scoffed, "H-How do you mean? How do you know it's a 'her'?"  
And so, Rebekah began to tell her our fortunate situation as I backed away from their discourse.  
It gave me pleasure, delight, fantasies to see Celeste rocking herself calmly in the room adjacent to the girls. She faced the window, watching the morning dew subside and the windows slowly lose their frost.  
"How are you feeling, my love?" I asked from the silver doorway.  
She beautifully inhaled and set her curly head back against the soft velvet of the chair.  
"Light-headed, but—everything else seems to be exactly fine," she fluttered, her hand outstretching for me to come nearer.  
I came over, kneeling beside her and putting a hand over the jutting skin of her ballooned stomach. She'd gone against her principles not only to save Rebekah's spirit but to save our niece, as well. It'd be over soon; most infants born unto witch bloodlines grew faster, had less trimesters. But I was savoring the days before Celeste would give birth. I couldn't give her this dream, but perhaps, someday we'd find a way.  
Taking away from my daydreams, Celeste grimaced, "Elijah. You need to hide the oak again."  
I patted her ringed hand to ensure her. "Yes, I've entrusted that much to Niklaus upon his ludicrous begging. He thinks he can do a better job of protecting it, we shall see."  
"No. You. And I mean hide it. Bury it, Elijah," Celeste commanded.  
How could I possibly get away with that? What would transpire the next time Mikael came and went? We'd have to travel out into the fields, dig for six feet, all the while leaving our backs vulnerable to one lone white oak stake twice as powerful as a dagger.  
Rebekah's creaking door closed. As I turned my head, I found Jezebel watching. Her overwhelming charcoal brows furrowed upon Celeste, mouth open and slightly disgusted. Funny, how quickly it made her seem less trustworthy than before. Less like a helper and more like an antagonist.  
Keeping with Jezebel's gaze, I answered back to Celeste, "Yes...You may be right. I'll ensure of it."

So, I choose not only to forgive her, but in hopes you will forgive me for not being there with you on this journey. We were sworn for each other and I know I could have been greater than you saw me. So let me make you proud for once and save you from making my mistake of trusting Jezebel Zaragoza's word.

**JEZEBEL**

_November 12_

I dug with long nails, the bane of my existence for the moments that I ended up digging wooden splinters of wood and tiny insects up from their beds. I should have brought a shovel, I'm sure, but it was already strange enough to be wandering around alone at night barefoot and hardly dressed. No matter. I knew the place Elijah had to have chosen for that dagger.  
Celeste was always mentioning walks to see the under-constructed bridge near to the Eastern edge of the city. It'd be a key part of getting to Baton Rouge much faster one day. Elijah had to pick a place to dear enough to him to remember where he put the daggers.  
"How simple were you expecting me to be?" he said from beside me.  
I startled, nearly bouncing away from the place I dug like a spooked housecat.  
"You and I both had to know Celeste's favorite spot in this city; the bridge. But on the riverbank? I'm no dullard. If the current rises and the river floods, it could break up the mud and sweep away our treasure," Elijah, standing with an anticipating parasol just before me, mocked me angrily.  
"Please let me do this. I have to," I whined.  
Rain would soon be rolling in, but still, he shut the parasol with authority for the meantime. "You never had to do anything."  
"What does that mean?" I frowned, getting to my feet and stepping back.  
"It means you never had to kill, lie, cheat, pretend, bed my brother—"  
I denied, "I didn't. I never touched him that way."  
"And so you're guilty of all other crimes?"  
Turning away from him, I shamelessly continued to dig as a drizzle began to impact the surface of the adjacant river. "It's none of your business why I did what I did."  
"But it is if it involves my family, Jezebel. And you've hurt them, more than you needed to. Why not just kill us?" he interrogated me.  
I barked back, "I want to save you, that is why I am doing this. I know how poor I've done things, how guilty I look to you. I'm not so sure I'm as good as I want to be, either. But one thing is certain. I'm in love with your brother. And if I don't do that, there will be no Mikaelsons at all."  
"Yes. Now you've convinced me. To do what I have to do," his voice drifted into syllables.  
My head turned to look up at him. In the dark of night, he grows veins beneath his eyes darker than the sky. His reddened eyes glow against starlight as he lunges for me with an open mouth and bites into my shoulder just above the collarbone.  
I can't get him off of me, though I push and try to commence a barrier between us. I don't have to, he pulls away before I am even close to complete blood loss. His mouth wide open, throat clogged and gagged by the sound of singing flesh. He stumbles, nearly into the river flowing beneath the under-constructed bridge before I grab his trenchcoat and redirect his fall onto the dirt road beside the river.  
"Elijah?" I cried. "What have you done!"  
He couldn't breathe. His flesh turning a fuzzy grey, chest arching and flailing. Quick to think, I shove my fingers down his throat and make him throw up my blood to the side of my legs.  
"Elijah!" I howled, shaking him to wake.  
The Original remained unresponsive. I was now at a loss for what to do. How do I take him home, explain to his family that I'd gone looking for their weapons? If Celeste was right and witches had no power over an Original's memory, it was out of the question to try a hex.  
"_Lo siento_," I whispered, settling on my last resort. "Duermo bosana..."  
My hand waved over Elijah's face, sentencing him to another two days' time in a deep sleep. It'd be enough time to enact my revenge on Celeste. As it seemed, the daggers would now not be a part of it.  
I watched as my blood, spat from Elijah's near-collapsed system sprouted into flowers, as it always did. It dawned on me that such a beautiful, a natural thing had done what nature always promises itself to do. It creates an illusion of harmless divinity, petals on a flower or unique fruits from a tree—and it lures us in only to finish us off. That is its best trick. One I thought I could borrow.

_We've said goodbye to too many before today. Kol Mikaelson, Celeste DuBois and the Millers. All must be tagged in consideration that Jezebel is responsible for each of these deaths. She was enthralled in previous plans to bring about a third party that would drive you away from New Orleans to make room for her father's tyrannic band of wolves, which is why I had reason to believe one of your great enemies would be enlisted to help._

_November 14th _

Celeste stood from her velvet seat, hand on her colossal bump. Her seat had been adorned with fresh-cut florals and branchy motifs cut from the Millers' property to match the natural crown placed on her head to signify fertility. The Maya and the Aztecas had been hunters, lovers of flesh; yet, the table feast only catered to vegetarians. Any chance of raw meat could tarnish the ending of the pregnancy. Twenty or so heads in the main room, they all wore their mantas, made of pretty reds and greens. Every tunic beneath was black. I remembered it was significant somehow; something my father told me about when he was young that distinguished class. My dress was green, my face painted with something gold; it stood for naïvity and servitude. I was to be ashamed, he'd said, if I'd ever had to wear those colors. That must have black above me; because I was on my knees like a dog waiting for order from black tunics with red-dipped toes. "Dear sisters," Celeste began her speech, "We're gathered here to celebrate the eve of our leader's grande resurrection."  
Looking over at me, I returned her selfish gaze. "We've encountered sours in our plans..."  
Of course, everyone other Seraph commenced looking over at me in suit of her glower.  
Celeste continued, "We've encountered mistakes and destructions unforeseen in the process of her becoming woman again. But Carmila is here now. And we are eternally grateful Celeste is aiding to finish her journey back into the world."  
Gleeful smiles, relief, praise to Carmila. I couldn't believe just how gullible the rest of my alleged coven was.  
"Would anyone like to speak their thanks?" a blonde-haired woman asked.  
A girl my age rose from her seat, giving her gratitude, "I thank my chief, Carmila, for bringing about a new world. A real new world in which power is rightfully placed. Kings will fall, civilization will renew. Plagues and death will bear to us millions of new paths!"  
No applause.  
Another woman, twice my age, stands using a helping hand to speak. "Carmila is the archangel of the Veil. She ensures our safety in the afterlife as she will on earth. And I bare extensive thanks that we will banish vampire kind to the afterlife, where it will once again be a hellish free-for-all all its own. Without Carmila, they'll suffer as we have."  
A third lady of the night began her thanks, putting a hand over her heart as she looked onward at Celeste. "I would like to give me thanks...to Celeste. You blessed woman, having lead us into the light where we were without a leader for so long. None of this would be possible if you hadn't taken on this burden yourself. And you," she turns to me, "Kisin take your soul, you will get your due by tomorrow's witching hour for all your incompetence. You know not what allegiance or loyalty is. Not even to your own mother!"  
Not much could be said to stir me beyond that point. The only person who could really make me feel ashamed was my own self.  
Celeste stopped her rant, "Now Shimi, we're here to be grateful, not to bring trial. She knows her place. Isn't that right?"  
The pretty cobalt blue glass Celeste rose above the candelabras scattered about the makeshift long table glimmered from the distant glow of the roaring fireplace.  
I stood from my seated position, setting the polished clay pitcher of wine for serving as I waited for all of them to copy her.  
"To Carmila," raptured Celeste.  
"Carmila!" they all cheered back.  
One collective sip last them three seconds. It was a gamble to trust they'd all drink at once, Celeste sticking to water.  
Just as it had happened to Elijah, it was seconds before they all were retching from their swallowed beverages, their faces turning wanton and leathery like a fruit in the sun. One thought quickly and forced herself to throw up the beverage.  
"Malinche," she croaked at me.  
Peeling the hot poker off its hanging position next to the brick of the mantle, I met her with its sharpest end. I could feel the poke just miss her spinal bones, slipping off the sides of them and stabbing directly through her heart. I watched the rest of them over my kill's shoulder, making divets in the rickety floors grabbing at their stomachs, eyes, necks.  
Two other seraphi held on beside Celeste, crying out for the slain woman, María, as I gave to them as I have just given to María. Peace, I believed. Peace somewhere they knew, that they'd been and should have stayed in. Celeste choked and coughed, slipping off her throne and hanging onto the edge of the table by its woven runner, speaking gibberish as she fought the poisonous flower growing in her system. My feet speckled in the blood of seraphi, watching her ears bleed from the side and her skin turn ashy.  
I leaned down, helping her keep her arms stacked on top of the table as I delivered her one last word.

_Her promises of wealth and autonomy from your brother's control could have kept me quiet, but at the cost of my death, the fear of her has become less so. Stop her before your time is nigh._  
_With eternal love__,_

_**\- Emil Devereaux**_

"You're right. I am the monster. You didn't fear me enough, and now, your world is mine," I whispered into her ear.  
As soon as I let go, Celeste dropped to the floor, gasping for air. I watched as something green and thin began to sprout from her cornea.  
She was trying to speak to me, to make words out of her burnt Gibberish throat. Suddenly, she smiled, and in death, prolonged it.  
As was the fate of all the others, little vines started sprouting from her the corners of her eyes and mouth, gashing her open eyes and corners of her jaw. All around the room, beauteous red flowers laid themselves across their cheeks and open wounds.  
My stomach churned because I truly feared there was a chance I hadn't killed all. It only mattered if the most important of them were dead. With that said, I timidly closed my eyes, tilting my head back as my shaken hand reached for the same bloody hot poker; I rose it above Celeste's stomach, ready to strike. A soaring pain, like an ulcer in my lower belly harnessed my spine and back, sentencing me to a threatening amount of burning and nausea. I dropped the hot poker on top of Celeste, whom upon the release of my smashed-shut eyes, no longer had the bump she was so ready to give an external presence.  
The air caught in my chest, my heart beating fast as I looked down at my stomach and saw the blooming growth of Carmila coming back to where she had started.  
"No...no, no," I moaned, clawing at my stomach and hoping it was my imagination. "No!"  
The oversized huipil I wore over my aching physique suddenly fit me perfectly. I felt the hands, pushing. The feet, kicking. The churning and weight of another person inside me.  
A clap of thunder and lightning sounded outside and vibrated the ground beneath my feet. My eyes ran out the window, watching a formerly harmonious sky outside turn bright and misted–turn to a premature dawn. The wind stopped coming in through the open windows of the farmhouse, but outside, I could hear the bayou trees on the edge of those acres groaning and bending, letting through a sinister force made of a thousand different voices.  
They were coming back. For her. For me.

**KLAUS**

The world outside was quiet, but just beyond the farmhouse and I in the distance, a looming black cloud I knew frightfully well was getting closer. We'd have to spend time in the cellar tonight. Before I could even approach the porch, Jezebel burst from the doorway, blood on her hands and looking up at the sky. Rebekah stood beside me, watching her, the crumpled forfeit letter in her hand and face still puffy as the swollen storm clouds.  
Jezebel noticed us, and there was little for her to take back, as she looked down at the blood on her dress's hem and shoes. The foreign symbols on her face and arms spoke of a spell gone wrong.  
"I want to kill her," Rebekah menaced under her breath. "Not you. Me."  
"Nik," Jezebel swallowed distressfully, coming to approach. "You have to go. Celeste, she's— They're going to kill you. All of them, they're coming right now. You have to get out of here—"  
I grabbed her splattered arms before they could touch me. She kept her eyes on the storm clouds behind us,  
"I think you've taken that much upon yourself, have you not?" I snapped.  
My spiteful tone took away from her performance of fear and panic, her eyes maneuvering over to Rebekah who watched us.  
"What's happening?" Jezebel frowned.  
Rebekah tossed the letter in a ball at Jezebel's feet.  
"You think I'm a damn fool for a bloody fake letter? That's your handwriting! This is you!" Rebekah shouted at her.  
"What are you talking ab–"  
Elijah cut her off as he approached from behind at a vampire's speed, grabbing Jezebel's shoulders and holding them away from us. I relinquished the silver dagger from its hiding place in my fine leather belt to our sister, who stepped in front of me to have the honor.  
"What are you doing!" Jezebel struggled.  
Rebekah grabbed her face, holding it still and smirking into it with spite. "You know, when you get a good look at her, I'm not even sure what had you so giddy about her, Nik. Too naïve. She can't even cover up a murder."  
I didn't say a word. I was trepidated by the moment. She was wrong. She'd hurt us, hurt me; tried to take everything by pulling a few visible threads. But I also knew I was at a point of feeling alright with letting her. It was strange to think she was not the same as what I knew, this one woman before me at that second; that I couldn't move my legs or my arms to help my siblings be rid of her chaos once and for all.  
"Where is she?" Elijah's frustrated, whiny pain broke his calm façade. "Where's Celeste!"  
"That's what I'm trying to tell you! We have to go before she tries to come back!" Jezebel yelped, trying to shove her elbow back into his chest and break his death grip.  
Elijah turned her around, grabbing her throat and pushing her against the joint beneath the roofing of the porch.  
"I want to hear you say it," he shook. "You killed her."  
Jezebel held onto his wrist, licking her lips and trying to be brave.  
"I did," she murmured. "I did."  
Rebekah followed his step, standing at the side of her.  
"You killed Kol!" She spat at Jezebel, breaking down. "You killed our brother! And Emil...and you killed Celeste! You called Mikael, someone you swore to me you'd never open your mouth about. You bare the distinct mark of evil, why should we ever believe you were the one trying to help us!"  
Most of her accusations didn't make sense by the gaze of Jezebel's eyes, but she accepted her diagnosis regardless.  
"Because I don't want to die! I don't want you to die. I need you... Please," Jezebel's voice broke, turning into a whimper.  
Her shaking, glazed pupils dilated to that of a cornered animal, her head shaking to and from insistently at me.  
"Please..." she begged of me.  
Rebekah noticed something abruptly, long before anything had become irreversible. It was underneath Jezebel's coat, the former signs of pregnancy had returned. If Celeste was dead...perhaps, another transfer had been put in place. But why?  
"Elijah..." Rebekah frowned.  
He looked down, moving the coat aside. Hesitation, minutes of it, tempted him to leave her alone. Rebekah released the risen grip on the dagger to her side.  
"She knows how to survive. That's for certain," bitterly, the heartbroken Elijah growls.  
He takes her down, pushing her away from him, to which she follows through with the direction towards me  
"Nik, I'm sorry. I mean it, I'm sorry! Please!" She clung to my coat, looking up at me, trying to restrict her emotions. "I can explain it to you, please let me."  
I couldn't speak. I couldn't think how to go about it, even as she threw her arms around my neck and swore she didn't mean harm. I took her arms off me once more, pushing her down onto the steps of her home and menacingly, leaning over her.  
Full of a sprouting rage, I decided, "You're going to walk to the border of New Orleans. You'll keep going until you've hit a port directly headed for Yucatán. You'll arrive home, and tell your father what a failure you are and that his pack will not set foot in this town if they do not wish to risk extinction. As for you...if you ever show your face to me or my siblings again...we will rip your head from your body. Do you understand me?"  
Her eyes, fell shamefully away from mine, regardless of understanding. There was nothing more to say. I turned my back on her, urging my harmed siblings to do the same.  
"That's it!" Elijah bellowed. "That's all she gets? We nearly lose our futures because of her, while you–"  
"Remember your code, Elijah. She'll lead a miserable life, as she deserves," I sharply turned on my heel, to look at my brother and sister.  
Jezebel, shakily wiped blood off her face, watching us from afar.  
"And life is crueler than any quick death," I mumbled.

**JEZEBEL**

We were strangers, but strangers who would kill each other for their right to live. We weren't humans. We were a wilderness. That was always meant to be the end of Klaus and I. And he was right. I would prefer a swift death to what I'd have to endure to ensure my life would go on.  
I wobbled back into the massacre of a home, stupidly wondering what I had to pack before I left. Nothing. I had nothing. I was so tired, I couldn't find it in me to keep crying. I was tired, more tired of crying than I wanted to close my eyes for just a few minutes.  
Blankly, I stared at the uneaten feast still fancifully sitting on the table, surrounded by its hungry, emptied bodies. Wrapped in branches, penetrated through the arms and legs by flowers that had outstretched their pores. Some had begun to brutally crack, like porcelain or the pretty little sculptures my father used to make me to put in my room.  
I approached the table, wiping my eyes and listening to the wind pick up quicker by the second. The centerpiece of the table was a sundial, much like the ones I'd seen in books and artifact halls from my youth. They were using it to count the hours, seconds before Carmila would arrive. Five, four, three, two, one.  
Fear eluded me as a clear liquid rushed down my leg, and left my foot sodden, a trail of footprints behind me as I picked up the sundial and laid it before the fireplace. My hands rose above it.  
"_Toma mi alma..._" I whispered, eyes closed.  
The dial wound up, sapping all the flames from the dying fireplace of embers and ashes. Behind me, the ceiling caves in. The big ceibo tree has fallen, crushed in my resting place. The hole gaped larger than any blackhole in space, and let the cold air rush in from outside.  
My first contraction resembled a landslide of boulders inside my stomach. It rendered me unable to sit up straight through the sundial's spell.  
I turn my head to look over my shoulder, no longer seeing a single body of a seraph on the floor. The wind grew stronger, stronger, strongest.  
Another contraction.  
"_Toma mi alma, toma mis caras, toma el mundo y ponlo en su cora'_..." I couldn't keep chanting.  
I transferred onto my left ribcage, then onto my back. I'd broken into a sweat, panting heavily as the contractions kept flowing, drifting together second by second.

*** ELIJAH ***

I loomed in front of the half-crushed farmhouse at the break of horrific day. No trace of Celeste, no consequence for her killer. I was parched, not for any blood. I was dried of kind words, of holding back. Yes, I'd been happy. So why, I had to know. Why had Jezebel did what she did to us, to the people who'd never touched her? It was hard to say that it was all over the first day we met, but then again, I never put the extent of anger in my enemies on the sidelines.  
A hurricane blew away the entire wall of a dam in the distance. I could hear the corruption of the land from miles away, but not as crisp as the tormented shouts and cries of a woman inside the house. A part of me hoped it was Celeste, clinging to life. Prepared to let fate pave my way to the truth, I staggered in the mud towards the house, entering through the broken door.  
From the foyer the screaming Jezebel, speaking over her pain in latin tongues, lied on the ground with blood between her spread legs.  
"_Toma mi alma, toma mis caras, toma mi al-ma—!_" She punctuated her spell with a shrill scream, digging her nails into the short shags of the carpet beneath her.  
I approached, planning to help but with little knowledge if I should or wanted to at all.  
I could hear crying, wailing asynchronous with the mother. Getting up on her forearms and yet to notice my approach, she reached between her legs and pulled. There came the small, sniveling, newborn baby we'd all anticipated. Jezebel panted roughly, dog-like, coming down from her crucial moment of hardship.  
The baby girl lay on the cleanest part of her clothing, kicking its legs and squirming around on its back, just waiting to open its eyes.  
Jezebel's hand wrapped around something close to her side. Something thin, long-sharp. A vessel from the fireplace, risen above the baby.  
I needed not justify my next actions; I knew I was giving life by taking one this way.  
Her hand started to come down swiftly, over the tiny infant's chest; at lightning speed, I redirected her hands to spear herself through her own chest.  
Jezebel cried out in pain again this time as I removed it from her chest and pierced her again, this time straight into her heart. I felt her lurch forward, dripping onto the squabbling child as it feared her collapse. Jezebel was gone in a matter of seconds, creating a pool of fluids and blood that would soon overtake the exceptionally vulnerable newborn. I quickly removed it from her incapable reach, watching her slide off the front of my tall shoes and pantaloons, eyes still open and terrifying.  
On the nearby armoire, the baby blanket Niklaus had panicked over gifting to his sweetheart collected dust beneath some of the Miller's knick-knacks. I waved it swiftly into the air, wrapping it around the crying orphan.  
"You'll be safe. I'll ensure it," I murmured down to it, preparing its bald, slightly curly head with my hand to brace the cold of the outside world for the very first time.

**KLAUS**

I offered my hand to help the grieving Rebekah down into the cellar for the day, but she rejected it as she had everything else. Blood, food, wine, company... None of it could distract her from the loss of Emil, Kol, and the constant lack of a child of her own.  
We'd anticipated Elijah's return from breaking the news to the governor about his son, but going on two hours, we could no longer wait.  
I was just closing the cellar door behind a life-size portrait of Kol himself; a symbol of his secrecy and mischief. Elijah stopped the door, holding a lantern to my face. He was sodden, panting, disturbed.  
"Where have you been?" I snapped.  
He said nothing, peering at me and my agitation with his vanishing act closely. I clicked my tongue, waving my hands boredly at my sides. "Don't tell me you're still fussing with the church for Celeste's proper burial, there's no point. Witches are expelled from such holy grounds."  
"Niklaus," he piped up, botheredly.  
I imposed on the start of the conversation, "I know, I know. You think it will compel the witches to show more of an allegiance toward us if we share a united loss. Well, I can tell you the last time that happened, they called our mother and had her show us to the enslavement of being a family again. Is that what you want?"  
I gestured him into the cellar, but he grabbed my arm and relayed the news.  
"It's Jezebel," he bemoaned. "I've received word from farmers on the neighboring land..."  
I pushed back on his grip, looking out the rain-stained windows and then at my brother's horrific pinch of wrinkles on his forehead.  
"She hasn't left," I frowned.  
The news was far worse than that.  
"She's dead," declared Elijah,"childbirth has taken her life."  
"...And the child?"  
He looked down at the soggy handkerchief in his hands that he'd used to wipe off his face from the outdoor showers. That was answer enough.  
I had no guilt but a guilty conscience I should have stayed. And to think that was it. That was the last of one of the most beautiful legends I'd ever encountered.  
"Don't tell Rebekah," I huffed. "Not until this has all well past."  
"Niklaus," Elijah persisted. "I'm sorry. I know you loved her."  
It surely felt that disappointing, but I'd come to the moment where I had to make one last decision on her behalf. Do I go on loving what never existed, or do I get in the cellar and take care of my family?  
"Get inside. Now," I evaded.

**REBEKAH**

_November 30th_

The hurricane left New Orleans before it had even started. It was a false alarm by weather presets and enthusiasts outside the city. But who cared about a little wind and fixable damages when we had just been given the greatest deceit of our current existence?  
Elijah and Niklaus begged me to let it be in silence; that Emil ran off with a pretty girl and encountered a robbery accident on the road. I couldn't even speak his name without feeling sick to my stomach; that's why I'd sent Elijah to bare the prettied-up bit of bad news.  
And that's what brought us to the day a new chapter was about to begin. The governor's only son was the portrait shining beneath the Louisiana sun, plastered onto a floral cross in the arms of two of his closest friends. I'd not seen the town wear as much black as they did that day. Elijah was far past over the entire year. He'd lost happiness, vigor, harmony... He'd even given up on his strife towards the ignorant witches who would not even hold a formal ceremony for Celeste.  
Klaus, on the other hand, was a mystery. He didn't want to hear Jezebel's name, but it's all he scribbled. He didn't talk about her, but he painted her until he grew calluses. He was angry at her, then plagued by the thought she was innocent; only to be angry at her again. I'm sure he'd made at least a few attempts in the meantime to replace her; that could only have been what made him more lonesome than before she came along.  
We followed the funeral carriage and the sound of hundreds of dusty footsteps on the city roads out to the rural side of town. Unfortunately, we had begun to march alongside the tune of a sadder song. Emil didn't like to talk about it, but it existed in the backs of our minds, his father was no gentile man. He'd had sons, daughters with others after Emil's mother. The youngest had been plucked from the back acres today for a public punishment. The governor's Danish gardener sat on the back of his horse, whipping the governor's young mixed-blooded boy. Each scream of suffering in my ears made it seem wrong to even be marching beside his ignorant father who loved only one son.  
Klaus briskly paused his step in the middle of the procession. The young black boy saw him, too, but turned away to avoid more punishments for staring. He had to be no older than twelve, falling to his knees and weeping shortly into the grass. It was a play. The black boy was beneath the fading apple tree, hgis hand beside a stray apple with an obvious firmness to it. He got up from his knees, turning and throwing it at the gardener's hand with the whip, an incredible look of hatred in the boy's eyes. Infuriated, the gardener and supervisor of the governor's servants wound himself up for another lashing. Klaus wouldn't have it. A sharp rock sat on the edge of the path just waiting to be thrown. With vampire strength, Nik threw it with a great exertion of his vampire strength. It hit the oppressor in the forehead, sensing the awkward movement of its master, the horse bucked the dead man off its back and fled across the yard. The procession gawked, but they did not stop.  
The boy, observing the fall of his bully, took caution to Nik as he approached the child from behind.  
Bellowed our brother, "What is your name?"  
The boy swung his head back and forth, stuttering, "Don't got one. Mama wouldn't name me till I turned ten, 'case the fever took me... then it took her."  
The boy's size, not entirely small but smaller than Nik's, made him bend down to reach the boy's eye level.  
"You're a survivor, and survivors need names," doted Klaus. "How about Marcellus?"  
"Marcellus?" The boy took a liking to it by the gleam in his eye.  
"It comes from Mars, the god of war, and it means 'little warrior'," Klaus's smirk widened. "We need more of those around here."  
Elijah and I watched him hold out a hand to the boy, who hesitated, but then smiled, taking it to get to his feet.  
I even heard the mournful Elijah make a noise of impression at the moment. "Perhaps there is hope for our brother, after all."


End file.
